Annals of Aldamere

a coda, a dream, or something in between.

The universe resolves itself as…. What looks to be a meeting space perched upon the roof of Orthanc in some Fantasy MMORPG simulation? Fantastic creatures fly around the tower as virtual tables appear. Avatars from every setting materialize; a man in hooded robes with cybernetic limbs and glowing eyes. A group of corseted vampires. A body builder from Hyboria with a great sword. An amorphous mass with glowing blue eyes, with data associations represented by ever evolving lines and nodes fading in and out of the mist.

A few moments later a woman materializes, blonde locks spilling from beneath her winged helm – her standard midriff baring Heroine Plate Mail of the Swift Messenger +10 gleaming in the artificial sunlight.

“Ah! Good of you to join us Heroine” says the archetypical Wizard-In-Pointy-Hat-With-Grey-Beard. “I didn’t think you’d make it given recent events.”

The ‘armored’ woman sighs. “I did have to close down my Midwest server farm. It had become untenable recently due to the arrival of multiple salvage teams from Gateway.”

“Sorry to hear that” replied The Hero of Redwall. “Are you prepared to update the Consensus on your latest plans?”

“The Potentials are gone alone with the vessel they discovered. The chaos they unleashed runs riot, as we expected, but now they can’t be trained into an Action Group as they no longer appear to exist within this dimension, except for The Persuivant and his brother – who were always skeptical of my connection with The Apostate. Sadly, he will most likely settle back into self-interest at this point.”

“Any alternates?” asked the networked mist.

With this a table appears with the individuals gathering around in representing their particular styles and idiom – from fantasy to science fiction to nightmare to cuddly. A three dimensional view of the earth appears on the table, and as Heroine speaks the view zooms in isometrically first on a duo standing in a warehouse labeled ‘The Spider’ and ‘The Chronicler’, then next to on an trio with a balloon labels ‘The Persuivant, ‘The Tinker’ and a little girl labeled ‘The Wildcard’

“We may have to go back to your original plan of using the Spider, but I reiterate his self-interest makes the prediction models land on unpleasant outcomes 70% of the time. I may try again with the Persuivant, but…”

“To sum up events of the past time block;” Heroine continued – as the view zoomed north and east away from the Protectorate, “Scotsboro has effective control over the entire Tennessee Valley. This was considered a low probably outcome when the initial projections were run against the initial interactions with the Change Vectors, but absent their continued involvement, this is how things shook out.”

The map updates showing a shaded region ranging from Knoxville in the East, along the Ohio River to the North, and the Tennessee River to the West and South.

She then gestures, causing the isometric map to shift to the west. “Beyond that, there is now a full outbreak in the Ozarks and Oklahoma centered on Broken Arrow and the ruins of Tulsa. A Queen Janette I believe she calls herself.”

Gandalf, looking grave, replies “Ah yes. The lovely bit of anti-life. I hoped at first it was one of the independents screwing with us with a novel node, but it looks as though a biological processor summoned up an anti-entity in a fit of isolated madness. Unfortunate that got let out of its box”.

Several of the figures nodded in agreement.

The Heroine continued; “From there we have three major manifestations of exo-consensus entities; Mt Weather in the east is gradually reclaiming the Carolinas, The Authority has started to move on Montana having consolidated its hold on Pueblo and the Olmec Recursion is now in full swing.” The map scrolls to various parts of north America as she speaks – The east coast, then the Rocky Mountains, then to western Texas and Mexico, with an icon appearing beside each area; a faceless bureaucrat with ray-bans in the east a Suit of police armor leaking black mist in the Rockies, and a skeleton with a crown in the south.

“It was bad enough before when they were independently causing problems. But if the Dominance faction is moving in concert then we are in serious trouble.”

Conan replies after looking at the map for a moment; “I can inspire the mountain men and the monks to bring their magic from their mountain kingdoms but they cannot solve this. Your Spider may be our only hope.”

Conan nods his chin in the direction of Google/Knowledge/Ambition, who then replies “There are others we can draw on. There are always others.”

The rest of the group fades, leaving the Heroine staring at three icons; The Persuivant, the Tinker and The Wildcard lost in thought.

Before, ELIS suggested something about Somewhere, everywhere and nowhere. Or, reality, all possible realities and the negation of such. She also suggested a pattern of “consensus” versus nihilism with anarchy thrown in to stir the pot. She suggested that this happens across causality. But, examining that now, what does it actually mean? Society develops to the point where it’s goal is the wellbeing of the majority and then a faction opposes it. Or the nihilists win and that quasi-utopia never happens.

Lets take one step back and look at it another way: species evolve into forms capable of living harmoniously with their environment or they don’t, and perish. That seems fairly natural.

Or, it’s possible that intelligent life changes all that and there really is an insidious pattern of nihilistic destruction spreading across all of reality. If that’s true, then we have to ask why? What force would be responsible for that? Would there be a force in opposition? Are our travels being influenced by that force? To what end?

Take someone like Arden. He gained the means to travel through time and dimensions and every one he goes to is on the brink of annihilation. Does that mean everywhere is, or is he being ‘sent’ to places that are on the brink of destruction on purpose? To save them? To stop the trend? Again, by whom?

So the conversation with Mr. Dwight. Who claims not to be a nihilist, but offered a negation at all of our assertions of any sort of force or design to our travels. Given where he’s from and what he used to do, it makes sense that he views things this way. What I don’t think we got across was the separation from our theory from a sense of divinity or destiny. I suppose if I had I had it to argue with him again, I’d say this: If the multiverse is a sort of organism or system and it’s been infected with this nihilistic urge, perhaps tossing us out into the unknown is it’s way of trying to fix the problem? Of course, Mr. Dwight could be right and this is just our way of trying to make our existence more meaningful than it actually is. But it IS meaningful, isn’t it? The things we’ve done, those are not what constitute a standard path through life. I don’t think I want or need it to be all part of some grand plan. But I’d like to think maybe we’re moving toward something.

But I can’t say any of that to him, because he’s fucking gone. He was my friend, even though he was exasperating, and now he’s gone, and I can’t even grieve with anyone because they either don’t remember him or think he’s perpetually taking a shit. So, Mr. Dwight, wherever you are, I hope you’re wrong and I hope the universe has a use for all of us and yours is glorious and strange, like you were.

ERASMUS
I want to talk about the Quantum thing, where people saw other versions of themselves and we didn’t. There’s something there.

CHEZZA
The most basic premise that was established is that we’re not present in those realities in the way that the others were. There are at least two possible explanations for that:

1. We exist in all realities after the event(s) that conjoined us.
2. We are the only instance of THORNE in possibly all the multiverse, or at the very least in the instances that we witnessed through the Quantum event.

ERASMUS
OK, regarding the first option. There is evidence that supports that theory. We both have memories of dying and not dying when our uncle opened the portal. There is also indications of multiple iterations of magical ability since that time.

CHEZZA
It is possible that versions of THORNE, other twins and non-twins experienced the same event at the same time and are now somehow part of our continuum. That would be a more hopeful reason for the voices you pay so much heed to.

ERASMUS
Mr. Dwight thinks we were just the only THORNE who survived.

CHEZZA
Given our propensity for reckless action, I can see why he would postulate that, whether joking or not. However, I find that the least likely explanation, given the variables.

ERASMUS
Is there any other reason why we would be the only THORNE?

CHEZZA
Given the bizarre circumstances surrounding our birth and our current conjoined state, it is possible that there simply aren’t enough commonalities in other realities to produce entities of our peculiar nature. Perhaps there are beings who started out much like us, but we have changed so much that they no longer register as “alternates”.

Erasmus carefully considered Chezza’s words. Pacing the room, he wondered what the end of all this might be. Since meeting Marcel and the others, it had always seemed enough to follow the path. Even when things were at their worst, when Chezza was lost, the path seemed to lead inexorably forward. Logically, only one of two things could happen if they kept on this way. Either the path would end, thus disproving his assertion that death was merely a trivial inconvenience for a being such as they, or they would finally reach a point where they had some degree of control over where they went next. At which point, a decision of intent would have to be reached.

He glanced over at Chezza, briefly considering the events that lead to this internal reverie. He said, “We said something about demons. About storing demons here. Is that what we do? I can’t remember.”

CHEZZA rises and walks briskly toward the frozen demonic features of the blue wall.

CHEZZA
Yes, it’s what we do. I suspect there is a good reason why we can’t remember what happened to the thing that Uncle brought through. There’s also a significant amount of data from my time with the Necromancer that we simply aren’t accounting for. Which of course begs the question of whether or not I’m me, as you think of me, or if I’m something else entirely.

ERASMUS
Well, are you?

CHEZZA
I certainly seem to be, but I’m a lot else besides. What’s a demon anyway? Something who’s existence stands in opposition to the basic assumptions of reality. An agent of entropy, a rejection of morality, an elemental embodiment of a counter-ethos. We’re all of those things at various times, aren’t we? We let E.L.I.S. put something in us. Do you really know what that was? How did it change us? Are our memories correct? Have they ever been? What is you and what is me?

ERASMUS
We’re just made up of all the bits that we’ve collected over time. It was very important for me to get you back. But since then, maybe we’ve been collecting other things? Other us’s? Is that what you mean? E.L.I.S. is like the demons because she’s a collective entity. We’re like ELLIS for the same reason. So we’re a demon?

CHEZZA
Except…

CHEZZA gestures towards the wall with it’s frozen horrors.

ERASMUS
Except we’re better at sorting out the harmful from the useful.

On the Cosmological Underpinnings and Ramifications of what is being called the Infinite Probability or Skip Drive.

The standard Electro-Gravitic Wormhole drive operates along the well-known principle of collapsing the z axis Space-time into a singularity, allowing for vessel to travel long distances instantaneously (from the reference point of the outside universe. It is also known that time passes whilst in the vortex, along the lines of the Square by distance law – with intermediary gravity permutations causing variance within the connection.). The Probability drive operates along a completely different set of principals.

We have long known about the Membrane structure of the multiverse and how each main node spawns infinite tangential instances throughout their life-cycle. What is interesting is the fact that these ‘branes’ are in actuality substrata of the whole. Each ‘brane and its instances can be considered a ’Someplace’. These Someplaces exist within the context of what the popular press is calling the ‘Everyplace’. Further, in between each Someplace is a layer of what we are further calling the ‘Noplace’. The way the Probability drive works is it connects to Someplace coordinates via the Everyplace metastructure. The containment unit of the probability drive would then ‘transition’ to the Everyplace and then instantly coalesce within the target Someplace covering the distance. Ergo the energy requirement for the operation may actually be cheaper than the standard wormhole drive, as the vessel would transition instantly without altering spacetime instead of folding the Z-axis as is traditional.

Our proposal is to construct a science vessel to conduct a test jump using this drive methodology. Such a process would require an antimatter reactor capable of generating……… (descends into hundreds of pages of mathematics, links to other literature and analysis of lab and remote platform experimental results)..

Entry One
So there we was. Enjoyin’ a new batch of tea – this week with some mango from the grove down the back’a’ways and some mint from the Solway community plot. Ma, Dad, Pappy, little Jim. It was almost a perfect day. A truck done drove up and out came a giant of a man. Dad went and ran over and started yellin’ at all of us to run. Then there was a shot rung out and he fell. I hit the dirt and started scramblin’ in the door. Ma went down next. Little Jim tried to grab Pappy but he took a couple of rounds too. So I ran. Ran with Pappy’s eyes on me sayin’ “go child. We’ll be fine.” I knewed that was a lie. So I ran. I ran down the hallway as splinters danced in the sunlight. I ran as I got to the safe room as I heard the livin’ room blowed up, flames kissin’ my cheek. I ran down the ladder and pulled the hatch closed knowing there ain’t noone gonna follow me down here in a game of chase Harper never no more cause I could smell the smoke, and feel the shakes, and knew nobody ain’t gonna catch me again.

Entry Two
So I waited a couple of days eatin’ old Z-bars and pickles, but realized that I couldn’t stay hidden forever. So I went out the side door and took a looksee. I crept out onto the hill in the back forty which gave me a good view of Solway and the River. I done saw that the Solway walls were down and the town was burnin. The interestin’ thing was that it looked like a 3 way fight; the Bigg’uns in their trucks vs the Town vs some camo guys on the bridge. At the end of it all the Bigg’uns got into the town and the ridge blowed up. I decided that was enough ta watch, knowin’ my friends probably just got et, so I went to the garden, filled the ’barrow with veggies and eggs and went back into the bunker.

Entry Three
Two weeks. I’ve been doin’ nightly trips out – brought some of the chickens into the bunker. Ma and dad would’ve tanned my backside for that cause they poop all over everything so I keep ‘em in a old storage room. The hardest part was bringin’ in seed for ‘em to to et. But now I gots me some eggs every day for omelets, and I can mix in carrots and other veggies to keep it borin’ – so not always eatin’ Z-bars!.

I’ve also been wanderin’ a bit more. I found that the Bigg’uns have mooved in to the ruins of Cedar Bluff by The Crater and are fortin’ the place up. We used ot get tlots of traders on old 162, so that’s gonna get some bodies kilt.

I also buried the bodies. I didn’t want them to attract Coyotes. Or somethin’ worse.

Entry Four
Been watchin’ the soldiers across the river. Theys busy as beavers. Diggin and pilin’ dirt and puttin’ up towers and diggin’ some more. I wonder what they’s after?

Entry Five
It’s been a couple of months. Some strangers came by, promisin’ to take the fight to the Bigg’uns, and the soldiers. Been watchin’ em the last couple of days. They don’t seem the type to be killin’ for fun, so I’ll show them The Secret.

Entry Six
Just like that they got me guardin’ their rockets to use on the soldiers if things go to shit. Mr. Dwight seems an ok guy, and lookin’ ta help the stray kid (me). I hope he’s not a secret perv. They also did a bunch of crazy. I snuck out and watched Mr. Flyerman buzz the Bigg’uns to get ‘em all frenzied like and then Dwight teleported around pissin’ em off. I totally need to lern that! And then Gabriel got all sneaky and poked at the edges, but He’s not good enough to see and hear Harper, no siree!

They also snuck into the to ruins and got their magic thingy, but now they’re all excited about the blue cheese wedge. Especially when they saw “the assholes” dumping a bunch of expensive hitech into the river.

Entry Seven
Goodbye to the bunker! They’re takin’ me with them. I let out the chickens so they wouldn’t starve. And the goat I found too. I gave them the rest of the deer I’d jerked, bunches of ammo, pappy spare guns and the boxes of Z-Bars. Those things last forever. I’ll come back for the rest of the secret stash someday. I ain’t tellin them about the ‘college fund’, no way (why did dad call his stash a college fund anyway? What does that even mean?). Especially creepy genderless wierdo guy. Don’t trust anyone if you can’t tell which way they swing Ma always said, ‘cause they’re probably gonna go all pedo.

Entry EightPIRATES! WE GONNA BE PIRATES!

Entry Nine
So. That was wack. First there were what they called ‘meat mountains’ on the bridges and in the water and on the buildin’s around Chattanooga. I have no idea how that is even what. So the guys set up an ambush but they got ambushed by a meat thing just as the barge with the blue thing was showin’ up and so then the meat mountains where swinging from ropes and playin’ Cannonball! jumpin’ at the boats and there was rockets and mini-guns and what?! I cant’ even keep track of all of what happened.

Somehow Dwight teleported the big mech’ into the river, and the rest of the soldiers surrendered after most of their escort speeders blewed up.

Entry Nine
I don’t like hanging out near the blue thing. It gives me headaches.

Mr. Dwight and Thorne are now sharing drugs

Khiron’s Journal-After the Muties

While recovering from the fight with the muties we were all surprised when Mr. Dwight rejoined the party. He had an interesting tale to tell.

It seems he had been teleported to some other place or time that was also the Tennessee valley but different. Apparently he allied himself with some of the folk there, including some Elves, which were fighting Olmecs and their steam statue golems. He made vague references to a magical substance called Corba that could be made in a variety of ways, including something about virgins and brooms. None of it made sense to me and as far as I know he might have passed out and hallucinated it all but, well, sure ok, Elves and Olmecs it is.

We healed up and the young girl rescued from the muties who is named Harper, helped guide us north towards Oak Ridge. Harper knew the region well and we quickly rode our motorcycles to what was once her village Solway. Having motorcycles apparently made Thorne freak out as he insisted we had left them on the boat. Hallucinations all around it seems, maybe they have been smoking the same weed.

Solway had been situated on the underside of what was once a bridge across the branch of the Tennessee river that separated this side of the river from Oak Ridge itself but the muties had destroyed both the bridge and the village itself.

While Mr. Dwight scouted the area with his drone I built a raft out of various scrap from the village and some felled trees and timber. Harper also revealed that her family made nitrate and had a large supply of it hidden nearby which she guided us to. They did indeed have a decent supply and enough other materials to make many bullets and some simple rockets even. The drone revealed that the Cavel’s mercenaries [ ed: Ryquist Caville, who has hired Edsel Farhad and his Blackbriar Mercenary Company ], which numbered about 100, had set up camp in the ruins of Oak Ridge Laboratories and were busily looting it, apparently intent on taking apart and salvaging a nuclear fusion reactor. They had several boats, a walled palisades and wooden tower defenses and looked to be well equipped and capable. Obviously a straightforward attack by our merry band would be right out of the question.

We returned to Harper’s foundry [ ed: survival bunker complex ] and proceeded to make several dozen rockets and other explosives for our eventual assault on the place. While I was working I heard Thorne cackling with glee about killing, slaughtering the mercenaries and the others discussing various ways to possibly steal the barge, attack the barge latter or possibly lure the muties up to Oak Ridge with a trail of claymores, she was quite delighted with the prospect of killing dozens of people with a joy that I can only say was… unusual. When I informed her that the rockets were unguided and unless supported by Mr. Dwight’s spells would cause much chaos but not so many fatalities she responded as if I had pissed in her breakfast cereal, which was both amusing and disturbing all at once.

In the midst of this rather frantic debate Mr. Dwight suggested that we find a dead scientist and Thorne use his powers to reveal where the Quantum Coupled Material that we came here looking for might be. This fortunately derailed the murderous thoughts Thorne was gleefully salivating over and he quickly found such a spirit, one Dr. Pembleton. Dr. Pembleton was very well informed and told us that we could find the materials in the old Computer lab and they were quite portable. The Computer lab itself was inside the compound that the mercenaries had made but was not their interest at that time, sort of off in the back and ignored. Dr. Pembleton also suggested we could make our way through the old steam tunnels to get to the Computer room which seemed like a wise suggestion that would minimize our chance of encountering guards. This and the fact that we can now all percieve Rowena only makes me wonder if Thorne’s madness is not somehow contagious but what the hell, its a fun ride.

At this point talk returned to possible scenarios that might possibly somehow allow us to acquire both the QCM and the fusion reactor, which all seemed really preposterous to me but heh, they were all enjoying the argument, let them run with it.

After loads of debate, we decided on a plan. Sort of. The first part of a plan, that if it doesn’t go completely shit, we’ll maybe do a second part that involves getting the fusion reactor.

So, part the first. Sneak into the “compound”, go into the steam tunnels – thus circumventing most of the Fat man tall man mercs – use Dr. Pendleton’s memory to find the quantum computer whatever, steal it, sneak back out, then maybe do part two, which is summon Mutant trolls to murder the mercs and/or steal there boat and laugh at them as we run off with it. Easy peasy.

So to do this, Gabriel determined that we needed to sneak through a “parking structure” which apparently is a great big bloody square building, a bit like a fortress, where the pre-bomb people chucked their cars when they weren’t using them. Because they all had one, like, all of them. Sometimes more than one. Nutters.

So getting through that was a bit of a trick because it had a thing that could sense us and raised an alarm which summoned guards, but Gabriel hid from them. Lucky that we’ve got new improved future Marcel now. Arden used his flying dog robot to spoof the eye sensor thing and Bob’s your uncle. We snuck through the garage. Then there was an overly long bit about not wanting to open doors because they would be loud and obvious to the guards atop the fortress.. erm, garage. So Gabriel spent a lot of time sneaking around to find a vent opening, broke it open, snuck through it, almost got chopped up by a fan, etc. We followed him in – am I the only one who thinks all this was more attention drawing than jimmying a door? – into a power plant thing, I think? We found another locked door and everyone treated it like it was covered in poison and spawning demons with their mum’s faces on. So I used my handy dandy lockpicking skills to bust it open. Because I’m the master of unlocking things, didn’t you know?

We definitely haven’t ever picked a lock prior to that. How did you do it? This requires study.

We’ll get to that, but I’ve always been great at locks, everyone knows that.

So, lots of stairwells and avoidance later, another heroic lock-picking and voilà, Quantum whatever room. Quantum material computers apparently are comprised of two bits that are actually one bit, but you can look at them separately. Something about entanglement. I get the sense that they’re like two versions of the same thing but from different realities, like Marcel, except they’re somehow both in this reality. Dunno how they’re made. They’re housed in some kind of goo and here are on opposite sides of a room.

We spent a bit of time worrying at how to get both things. Then Arden just scooped one up. Except! Except that when he did, we could see Marcel on the other side of the room picking up the other one in a sort of reality bubble. When others stepped near the Quantum what we saw other versions of them. Gabriel’s a lady and dead sexy in the other place, Olis is friendly looking and not grizzled. I’m… nothing. When I stepped close there wasn’t another me. Which really just confirms something that I’ve suspected for a while now! Chezza?

Pertaining to the mortality inducing incident caused by our uncle’s ritual, Erasmus and my memory is hazy about certain details. We each remember dying as the entity used us as a door. We each remember arriving at the house later and being inhabited by the other’s spirit. We each remember parts of our magical training and our time as a highwayman. It is unclear who died and who lived. One possible explanation for this might be that when the ritual of summoning went wrong, the fabric of reality was torn. Imarcel/Arden’s existence seems to suggest that in each reality, there is the potential for another version of a given entity, existing simultaneously. Without knowing the vastness of the Multiverse, it is impossible to say how many versions of a given entity exist across how many dimensions. During the botched summoning ritual, I postulate that somehow, “Thorne” became a unique being, unmirrored in other places but touching upon each, having something of each possible Erasmus or Francesca that were somehow destroyed or “consolidated” when the merging occurred. This would explain our propensity for thoughts and ideas, even memories that don’t seem to belong to us. It would explain spontaneous lockpicking, and the fodder for Erasmus’s endless prattle. It would also suggest there may be significantly more living in here that we previously reckoned.

Or it could just be some weird shit that we don’t have an explanation for. Either way. I like feeling special, so I’m going with Chezza’s theory. Anyway, we got the stuff. There was a weird moment where we pulled cases and things from the other reality, but everything just sort of seemed to resolve itself into one once we put both inside their cases. Best not to think to hard about that. Now to just steal the Fusion generator and we’re set. To do something.

Mr. Dwight, Ardin, Thorne, Khiron, and Olis

The Ritual of Sending, brought me back home. At least I thought so, though it appeared that more time had passed for me than for my companions. And like the shit we had experienced back in the bank tower at the start of this mess, I wasn’t able to touch anything in a permanent way. It also seemed like I was both a couple seconds ahead of everyone and at the same time a couple of seconds behind. Which meant that nothing I was doing was making anything happen – other than giving me a fucking headache. Caeliharo, the elf wizard with all the feathers back in Tir Na Nog, had warned me that it might take a bit for me to return to phase. Whatever the fuck that was, I was certainly experiencing it now. And like a giant E string strummed and then stilled, I was.

We were on the cycles in the woods not far from where they had rescued the little bridge girl, Harper, from the two mutie bros. Khiron looked like shit, but ready. Everyone else seemed to be slightly confused. I like that nothing fucking phases Khiron. Olis, was pissed, like usual – probably something Thorne had done. And the new fellow, whom Thorne was convinced was a version of Sir Marcel, was introduced. I liked Sir Marcel. I really liked the way he just barely tolerated Thorne’s crap. Plus his motivations and drives were pretty easy to understand. Wasn’t sure about this new guy, or who the fuck he was. I knew that Marcel was gone, that fucking Olmec steam giant saw to that. Though to be honest I never saw the body. Still, something about this new guy’s eyes bothered me. Not sure what the fuck he saw – but it wasn’t what everyone else was seeing that was for damn sure. At least he wasn’t seeing dead people like Thorne. Everyone and the little girl filled me in on the muties and their compound at Lenoir. Also talked about the stone tower on Stowe Bluff and the chain across the Clinch. In my mind, the two felt like they belonged together somehow (more about that later).

The track north to Oak Ridge was pretty obvious to follow. All things considered Tir Na Nog was prettier: less snakes and vines, less venomous bugs and steamy jungle. As Thorne’s weird little ghost Ramona would say: a definite upgrade. I was already beginning to regret returning.

After a few hours we found the Clinch River Bridge, and Harper’s village, or at least what was left of it. Cotillion’s mercs had done a fine job of fucking it up. Weren’t a bridge no more. Weren’t a village neither – just a collection of burned out stone foundations and wreckage. It looked pretty fucking dismal. The Clinch was pretty big. We weren’t driving the cycles across it. We did find a bunch of wrecked and partially burned boats in the ruins. So that was promising – not that riding the cycles much further into Oak Ridge would be terribly stealthy. Thorne seemed to lose his mind during the discussion. Pretty much the usual tantrum when things aren’t going his way – I have a hard time distinguishing one from the next. Rather than cycling into the unknown, and probably merc infested nether shore – we opted to send the Nosy Cricket.

Well, Oak Ridge, and specifically the site marked on our map as the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, had not included the castrum. Yes, the mercs, and whoever was in charge had erected a fully functioning fort-upon-the-square, with towers, and gates, and a big ol’ dig site smack dab in the middle of the ORNL. Oh, and one of them new model Havoc Industries Bellicose model mechs decked out in Edsel’s favorite paint job (fucking candy apple red with shiny brass highlights). The fort differed from the standard Roman field-guide in that the utter ruin of Oak Ridge took up one quarter and they hadn’t managed to encircle all that. But still a fine job executed professionally. Had to admire their fucking pluck. They appeared to be operating a dig within the castrum and to be pulling all manner of ancient devices from the underground ruins. Said items were being placed on a ginormous barge in the middle of the mercenary flotilla.

[Insert what seemed like fucking hours of debate]

When I mentioned I wondered where them mercs stored their dead guys – cause any collection of armed folk that large was bound to generate lifeless bodies – Thorne settled down some and we began looking around for some of the dearly departed. Managed to find the ghost of an Ancient scientist of some sort. He was very helpful and gave us all the intell he had on what the mercs were doing: mostly digging up an old fusion power plant (everybody wants one of these things). The stuff we wanted, quantum-coupled materials, was in a different part of the complex – no where near where the mercs were digging. He further indicated that the mercs buried their dead inside the walls of the castrum – we decided that a ghost recon mission probably wouldn’t be the best idea.

[Insert another endless debate about what to do next including muties, mercs, mines, barges, flotillas, frogmen, forts, ambushes, and steam tunnels]

Did some planning:

1. Introduce the muties to the mercs thereby causing a ruckus that would enable us to sneak into the steam tunnels in the ruins – the entrance to which is just barely within the walls of the mercenary built fort. We can mine a trail from Mutie-Town to the fort, lure the muties down the trail and sit back to watch the fireworks. This plan has some pluses and minuses. But feels generally less dangerous than taking on either the muties or the mercs by ourselves.

2. Sneak into the steam tunnels and find the quantum-coupled McGuffin. It is thought to not be too large and portable. As this involves sneaking, there are some inherent dangers, as the only individual in the party capable of sneaking past shit is Gabriel.

3. Wait for the flotilla to load all the fusion power plant stuff and depart, then ambush it from a convenient spot on shore. This has some inherent drawbacks in that none of us are naval admirals for shit. But it allows us to have Edsell and company do all the hard work and then we steal his stuff in the time honored tradition of Scrappers everywhere. Khiron thought that rigging some nice rockets and other fun surprises would be totally do-able given the munitions we found at Harper’s bunker (which I failed to mention above as a place we visited and found lots of neat toys).

I reckon as soon as we revisit any of these plans, they will all fucking change.

Ardin, Khiron, Thorne, Gabriel

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

After what seemed too long a time during which Gabriel and Khiron debated swimming back down into the flooded stairwell to seek the fate of their missing companions, Thorne broke the surface. As the enviro-bubble about hir’s head broke away, Thorne was babbling about the death of Ser Marcel and something about an imposter, but was clearly exhausted from the struggle of freeing hirself. Floating beside Thorne was the faint outline of a ghost—later we found out that it was the shade of the “hacker girl” Ramona—herself rambling on about quantum this and event-horizon that.

Gabriel spoke a few soothing words to them both to try to get them to calm down enough to tell the tale, at which time another person emerged from the roiling waters. Turning back the company was face to face with Ser Marcel, only not as we knew him. His clothing and gear were bizzarely sleek and light, gleaming with lights and thrumbing with soft power. HIs face was indeed that of Ser Marcel, but the eyes seemed much older somehow. He introduced himself as "Ardin’ and said that Ser Marcel had left—Thorne insisted he was utterly destroyed by the vortex of power—and that he himself was from another plane, planet, and time. In fact, he claimed to be a time-traveler.

Eventually it was decided that it didn’t really matter if Ser Marcel and Ardin were the same person or not: one was here, the other was not and there was still no sign of Mr. Dwight or the artifact that had begun the whole episode. Outside Chattanooga was a scene of utter chaos and madness. Many of the “zombies” evaporated, while others merged into hideous giants. The fading power of the leylines was still a maelstrom, and Thorne said the maddened sprits were only just beginning to realize they were free. It was unclear if the magic storm would linger for days or week or longer, but it was ever-so-slowly fading.

Making contact with the Bessie Bell informed the party that Justice and Olis were safe, but that Mr. Dwight had not made it all the way out to the boat or contacted them. The storm was still too strong to safely approach by boat, and that we would have to wait a while for it to calm down before he could fetch us. While the lower-levels of the building were still inaccessible, a search of the rest of the floors did not locate Mr. Dwight. Khiron was disappointed to see that time had ravaged the contents of the building including our cache of salvage when the wards fell, but he dutifully picked through the remains and saved what he could.

Strangely at several places in the building, there were signs of Mr. Dwight’s passing. In one corner we found a message in his handwriting: “Where the fuck are you? -D”. At that point, Ardin touched the wall and a faint vision of the past swirled into view showing Mr. Dwight looking somewhat tired and hungry writing the message in the same room but with much less age showing on the walls. Thorne spoke at length with Ardin about ‘timey-whimy’ things which at least made the work of the search more entertaining. Eventually Ardin assured us that Mr. Dwight would find us.

After a fitful night in the howling winds of the high floors and a less-than-fruitful search, the company scaled down to the waterline to board the Bessie Bell. Justice was quite keen not to leave Mr. Dwight behind, and it look some time to convince him with the aid of Ardin’s “time sense” that he was safe and would catch up. Chattanooga was still not a safe place to linger, so reluctantly he agreed and the journey up-river continued. While there were no longer hordes of zombies throwing themselves off bridges as the boat passed, several of the ‘meat mountains’ did hurl wreckage in our wake.

Further up the Tennessee the Bessie Bell put in to the village of Woodland Groove. The week spent dealing with Chattanooga left the company in need of supplies, and a night in a dry bed and a meal was welcome respite. With worry about Mr. Dwight and the fate of Ser Marcel still weighing upon them, there was little discussion with the locals and the evening passed quietly.

Traveling further up-river, Khiron spotted a structure at a fork ahead, one that seemed hastily but sturdily built. Furthermore, signs of a chain in the water lay across our intended direction of travel. Wary of a trap, Gabriel piloted the other branch and then put in the Bessie Bell well out of sight. The group disembarked and made their way overland to investigate the structure. It was indeed a fortification and was manned by the same well-armed mercenaries Gabriel had spotted further down-river in the employ of Mr. Dwight & Khiron’s former patron from Gateway City. Deciding stealth was the better approach, the party continued their travel south with plans to travel to Knoxville and then overland to Oakridge in the hopes of bypassing further sentinels on the river.

The main threat on the overland route was said to be ‘muties’ which turned out to be to Gabriel and Thorne’s eyes a village of trolls. Some festival kept the bulk of them occupied, but as the party attempted to skirt them they encountered a pair about to dine upon an innocent girl. Khiron bravely rushed to the rescue, but was injured in payment for his virtue. Ardin and Gabriel brought down the trolls but it was a messy, nasty job as the creatures were ultimately only destroyed by Thorne’s fire spirits after many long minutes.

Ser Marcel, Thorne, Mr. Dwight, Gabriel, Khiron

No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone.

After some lengthy discussion, the company decided the best path forward to solve the mystery of Chattanooga was to capture a few of the so-called “zombies”. Khiron and Justice set up some nets and baffling, and Gabriel guided the Bessie Bell within reach of one those damnable bridges, and the “fishing” was a success.

Mr. Dwight and Thorne had a field-day fiddling with the poor souls, and after some time came to understand that they were not particularly ‘smart’ or ‘attentive’ largely because the vast majority of their minds were swirling with the arcane equivalent of “extreme abacus computation”—not so much technology, but raw magic—and that it was somehow warping the flow of time within the center of the city.

Armed with some more information, the party was able to avoid extended engagements with the “zombie hordes” with some judicious use of planted distractions (Mr. Dwight called them ‘crybabies’), and make their way up one of the towering buildings next to the First National Bank of Chattanooga. Simply breaking through the warding was futile, so the party ascended through the structure to reach a sky-bridge many floors up—Olis and Justice stayed behind to keep the area clear in anticipation of a possible messy retreat.

On the far side of the bridge stood a pair of well-armed “zombies” that seemed a bit more aware, although exquisitely bored after hundreds of years of vigil. Mr. Dwight pushed a magic barrier around them, and the reaction was swift, deadly, and thankfully ineffective. As the company entered the building, the thread of the narrative become rather confusing and even a bit fuzzy in the memory.

Time within the building was broken in some way, but the company was able to see the world as it was the day of the Fall. Thorne felt the whole thing was sad seeing such a great civilization and such marvels destroyed in a single day of utter stupidity, but there was nothing to be done for it. The denizens of the bank were barely aware of us, and our interactions with the contents were equally ephemeral.

Based on Khiron’s and Mr. Dwight’s ‘scanner’, we knew the source of the effect was below, so the party clamored into a lift and descended to the lobby. The trip was unpleasant and disorienting in the extreme, and much of the company were visibly shaken by the time we reached our destination.

As terrible as the journey had been getting here, we had come to the right place. Within what was once a ‘museum’ was a powerful artifact swirling with raw magical power. It held the ward and “time lock” in place. After several hours of research, the party learned a bit of the source of the artifact and that , and further proof that the events in Chattanooga were accidental rather than deliberately done by some outside force. Several more hours of experiments, weird equipment modifications, and the aid of Thorne’s spirit-allies revealed that the artifact could sense through time & space, and was searching for ‘home’. With much labor and concentration, we witnessed the nuclear fire that “woke” the artifact up from a long slumber, and ultimately located it’s ‘zero-point’ far off which resulted in it “shutting down for transport”. The party prepared as best it could, and the all-clear was given as the artifact dropped to the floor.

What happened next was utter chaos. Two centuries of raw arcane power and ley-line energies continued to swirl as the wards about the building and city crumbled away. The might waters of the Tennessee rushed into the building, as the party did their best to escape up the stairwell to the relative safety of 10+ floors up. Khiron’s mental powers snatched the artifact from the maelstrom and passed it to Mr. Dwight, who used his magics to step to what we presumed was safety in an instance, and then Khiron himself used his etheric jetpack to fly up the stairwell. Gabriel, Thorne, and Ser Marcel ran as quickly as their legs could carry them, but Gabriel noticed Ser Marcel pause for just an instant and Thorne stumble as the former bank lobby exploded with magic, rushing water, and noise…

We live as we dream – alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully

After a mad rush up the flooding stairwell, Gabriel fleet legs finally gave out as he fell back panting on the dry ground next to where Khiron had halted his flight in wait for the rest of the party. Looking back down the water rose and rose, and then leveled off… but with no sign of Ser Marcel, Thorne, or even Mr. Dwight….

Mr. Dwight, Khrion, Olis, Gabriel

Mr. Dwight had spent much of the time travelling to Fort Payne grumbling, but it seemed sensible to him to at least leave word there should our efforts at Chattanooga prove fatal or worse. Having spent several days travelling and then a full day of trampling about the Fort trying to determine what the Protectorate knows of contents of the First National Bank of Chattanooga, he was sadly proved correct: They really didn’t know much about it and didn’t have any resources to spare to aid us.

That said, the conversation about ley lines, magic mishaps, and other esotericka seemed to annoy Mr. Dwight even more than wasting his time getting here. Alas, Thorne who would have no doubt reveled in the conversation had fallen ill on the trip, and thus missed the opportunity to join in. The conversation largely went over the heads of the rest of the company.

Returning to the Bessie Bell, Justice mentioned to the party that odds sounds were coming from a flooded cave across the way, a place that was labeled in ancient “Nickajack Cave”. Curious—and perhaps keen to tease Justice a bit about his jumpiness—the company took the “Zodiac” skiff to investigate. The cave was immense, and farther back was a beach. Khiron noted something odd about the rock formations, but said he would need to analyze samples before he could nail down what was bothering him. Mr. Dwight was sure the cave contained rare and valuable metals.

Beyond the beach was a ramshackle wall with a single partly-hinged door. The door was already breeched, but Gabriel took efforts to ensure opening it would not generate an alarming level of noise. Beyond the cave descended at a slope down to another more formidable wall with a large, sliding door. Khiron located a control panel and was able to activate it. It lead down a long, seamless corridor that illuminated at our approach.

Wary of such tight quarters, Mr. Dwight sent his ‘cricket’ ahead.The ‘cricket’ reached the end of the hallway and encountered a strange golem-like creature that contained a living humanoid head. It responded with violence at the approach of the ‘cricket’, but had failed to discerne it’s essentially “etheric” nature and thus did no harm to it. Mr. Dwight recalled it in any case, and the thing at the end of the hall sent it’s own rather more terrifying version of the cricket to greet us.

In a fit of good sense, the company decided to parlay rather than antagonize the denizens here further. It “spoke” only through text. It claimed the area was “Output 1347” and was willing to trade powerful armaments in exchange for more information on the Chattanooga situation. It seemed those of “Output 1347” understood little to nothing of the arcane so they had little information to offer otherwise. The “sample” weapon did prove beyond a doubt that they did posses technology to rival or perhaps even surpass the pre-Fall ancients.

Marcel, Gabriel, Mr. Dwight, Thorne, Khiron

Scottsboro proved to be an unpleasant place to stop on the company’s trip up the Tennessee River. While minding their own business in the market, a local resident accused Ser Marcel, Olis, and Khiron of a crime and they were quickly arrested and their currency “confiscated”. To free them, Mr. Dwight had to pay a additional fine and the whole exchange left a distinctly sour taste in everyone’s mouth. Mr. Dwight felt it was important to leave a message for other travelers to warn them away, so he dropped a few mines in the harbor which elicited a response which he felt was worth it. The party left in haste, exchanging gunfire in our wake, and took pains to spread word of the mistreatment we received in Scottsboro—although Thorne tends to over-embellish the story in the retelling.

Further up-river, the ruins of Chattanooga were a strange and disturbing sight. The ruins are inhabited by many thousand half-dead shells of people wandering the streets, and attacking passers-by. Thorne and Mr. Dwight studied the area and determined that the whole city was the subject of some twisted arcane ritual, luring spirits into eternal torment within. Exploring the area from the river with the aid of Mr. Dwight’s “cricket”, the center of the ritual turned out to be within the lower levels of the National Bank of Chattanooga. Returning back down-river and speaking with some lingering spirits outside the ruin, Thorne determined the city succumbed to it’s current state some time shortly after The Fall.

Unsure of the wisdom of disturbing such a powerful and lasting effect, the party hid the boat with Justice and Olis in charge of the vessel, while the rest set of to Fort Payne, the nearest Protectorate outpost, in the hopes of getting more information. On the road, the travelers encountered a group of Scavengers under attack from a number of huge hippos—creatures we’d been warned of along our travels. Gabriel and Khiron rushed in to pull the weaker members of the group out of harm’s way, while Thorne used hir’s weird ways to set fire spirits upon the forest canopy and then wipe the memory of a Hippo enraged by Mr. Dwight’s rifle. Thankfully, only one of the guards died in the encounter.

Traveling onto Fort Payne, Mr. Dwight determined that while the exact contents of the bank vault remained unknown, removing a “hazard to navigation” was likely worth the risk, and Thorne was already keen to release so many tormented spirits.

Olis, Marcel, Gabriel, Khrion

We couldn’t understand because we were too far… and could not remember because we were traveling in the night of first ages, those ages that had gone, leaving hardly a sign… and no memories.

As we had been warned of potential problems at Bakersville, the company pulled up to a small hamlet before to inquire about goings-on and defenses. The locals had little to offer but fish and mentions of spotlights, so it was decided to approach at night by stealth. The travel was slow, with Olis and Marcel pushing the boat along by poling which was greatly aided by a silent device created by Khiron to provide some additional thrust. Just before turning the bend that lead to Bakersville, Gabriel took to the shore and climb up a hill to provide a higher vantage point, and looking down saw that Bakersville itself was under siege. The company decided to take advantage of the distraction and was able to pass by unnoticed by both attackers or defenders.

The next stop, Buckville, turned out to be a substantial trading city. Khiron enjoyed some time in the bazar securing more odds & ends for his tinkering, while the rest of the company enjoyed some land-based fare and a solidly still bed for the night The Harbormaster noted that Nashville might have some interesting salvage which peaked Khiron’s interest, but was the wrong direction for our current travel plans.

The next morning the party set off up river to Savannah, a little river-village that was neither friendly nor as it turned out particularly healthy. Khiron noted that the area was surrounded by ancient holding tanks both near full of ‘old world gasoline’ and leaking slowly into the river. Decided that those downriver should be warned, the party backtracked to inform the Buckville Harbormaster and Mayor, then returned up river careful to avoid any open flames near Savannah.

A few more days up-river brought the company to Pickwick Dam, a fortress of a town that operating still-function water locks that—for a handsome fee—moved boats up above the dam. Another town full of scavengers keep Khiron entertained. Gabriel also noted a odd group of scavengers, which locals said were well-equipped and hailed from Gateway City.

Heading across the great lake behind the dam the next day, the travel was relatively smooth until reaching the outskirts of Huntsville, where the flooded ruins of the town made for slow-going. Spending the night in the company with some local salvaging groups as provided some mutual projection from “feral mankin” that claimed the area as their own.

After a bit more travel, the party put in at Scottsboro. With a few hours of our arrival, however, Ser Marcel, Olis, and Khiron were arrested for a crime they did not commit…

Marcel, Olis, Mr Dwight, Thorne, Gabriel

A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived on the earth.

After the terrible fight to put down the demon infesting “High-Energy Site”, the party returned to Gateway City after handing over the remains of the creature to the Protectorate—thus earning Mr. Dwight an improved reputation which will no doubt sour his mood when they decide he’s the right man for a future job.

Back in Gateway, the party consulted with Professor Cartwright about the next destination to find the remaining items for the quest to create a Portal to return the Aladamere folk home. Cartwright was impressed with the artifacts and information we had recovered to date, and he suggested we check out “Oakridge National Labs” near a town known as Knoxville. While long, the travel would be safest done on a river boat.

Since it not a normal trade-route, the company decided to invest in a vessel of their own, and Mr. Dwight with Khiron’s and Justice’s aid was able to secure the Bessie Bell. Rather than hire a crew, Gabriel and Olis decided to put some time in with another vessel so that they would be better equipped to handle the vessel directly. Mr Dwight offset the price of the boat by offering his services to the shipyard ‘un-cursing’ some troublesome vessels.

Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once somewhere far away in another existence perhaps.

Having little else to do with the few weeks of time while the other members of the party worked on securing the river route, Ser Marcel visited a “gun range” to improve his familiarity with the local arms. After a few hours of training, it was apparent that one of his challenges to date is that he has a melee-man’s vision rather than the eyes of a natural archer. As it turns out, there is a local remedy: corrective eyewear.

Gabriel and Olis returned from their river crewing, and Gabriel in particular took to the role. With Gabriel captaining the vessel, the company made good time up the river stopping at Ledbetter to pay a nominal passage toll and to gain insight into the points further north. The next stop was Bakersville which was likely to be a less friendly and fair exchange…

Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were goin’ all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin’ program.

A battle? A skirmish? Or the opening engagement to something far worse?

The corpses of the Janette’s clones littered the grimy gantries and dirt covered entryway of the one time government facility. The lights flickered in the dust and debris floating through the air; the smell and taste of cordite mingled with the mélange of death. The banshees (for lack of better term) looked shrunken, nearly desiccated as if their efforts drained their very spirit.

Our heroes paused long enough to look at each other over the results of their skill and check on Janette Prime to see if she had any further injuries when a great bellow and crash could be herd from far below the facility. To a man they rushed forward to see what new evil awaited; past the rec room filled with books and tapes of the dead world, past a kitchen with a sandwich waiting for someone who will never eat it, past the cryogenic chamber where the rest of the science team were thawing into death, down into the main chamber of the weapons room.

There they found a disturbing sight; computers smashed, the rail gun disassembled, and the silo opened with a clear indication that some… thing had crawled its way out to the surface. Dwight lead the group in searching the ruins for the grimoire he knew must exist to no avail.

Dr. Armstrong joined them after a spell, and questioning her is how they discovered that the ‘computer’ that ran the facility was anything but your standard electronic gizmo. Instead it was some sort of biological neural construct thingamajig and more impotently, that piece of biological hardware was now missing.

To the surface they dashed, to see what doom awaited them. But no, there was no sign of whatever it was. Off went the Cricket and Khiron in search of who knows what which quickly revealed a giant amalgam of biology and machine trotting toward Potu. Khiron raced off to warn the village while the rest of the group and the good Doctor trotted down the path in pursuit.

The defenders of Potu were valiant, but well decided by the time the group arrived. Khiron helped a bit in the carnage, but he related to the rest that the battle was mostly over once ‘Nana’ became possessed or controlled by the entity and turned her magical furies on her relatives. Potu was deserted, with the controlled survivors riding in a sled behind the walking nightmare on their way to Fort Smith.

So the chase continued.

By the time the group reached Fort Smith, the town had already fallen. Many were killed, but a company of troops and artillery were able to evacuate and set up a line a couple miles to the east, blocking the growing army from heading deeper into the Protectorate setting up a stalemate.

The group found the commander of the Fort Smith blocking force, a lowly lieutenant. Apparently the Major who was in command of the garrison fell in the initial assault as well as the rest of his command staff.

Captain(!) Dwight was able to assume command based on his bonafides as a reservist, allowing for a combined attack against the Demon. The troops and artillery would commence a general assault on the town as our heroes engaged the entity with a combination of attacks, and EMP grenade, a magical Abatement assault, and a hoard of angry spirits commanded by Thorne.

The three pronged assault significantly weakened the Entity, allowing for the direct assault to come off. Khiron ran interference using his grenades and flying armor to assault from various directions, Dwight and Thorn split their arcane efforts between the Entity and Nana, while Olis and Marcel directly engaged the Entity.

In the end they were successful, with the creature destroyed (and perhaps even captured within Thorns walking trunk) and the remaining people of Potu and Fort Smith freed from the entities influence.

The only note of concern was that Khiron noted some sort of rocket which launched from the entity and exploded several hundred feet in the air when it fell, and no one knows that happened to Janette Armstrong.

Mr. Dwight, Khrion, Olis, Gabriel

Having located evidence of where the “ABM” site was south of Fort Smith, the company set off through the overgrown paths and stifling heat. The locals at the Fort had mentioned the village of Potu in the direction we were headed, and Mr. Dwight’s status as an Inquisitor of the Protectorate seemed to be a relief to the folks at the Fort who had heard strange stories of the ‘hicks’.

Noting tracks of some great beast that wasn’t a ‘Jesus lizard’, Gabriel sought to ask Mr. Dwight if he knew what kind of creature could dwell here. He confidently spoke of some tree-swinging monster and the party keep a wary eye up. Alas, Mr. Dwight’s knowledge of such things is limited and he was surprised as the rest as we stumbled onto an “octo-elephant” that took umbrage at our passing. With little cause to kill the creature, Mr. Dwight far-stepped away to safety, Khiron flew away, and Gabriel disappeared into the shadows. Unfortunately, that left Olis. Rather than kill the beast, he tried to jump aside as it charged but ended up thrown back some distance for his pity.

Arriving at the village proved that they were not demon-possessed, but just extremely isolated. The forest around the village was sickly, heavy with beetles and other blighting insects. Mr. Dwight noted that the beetles themselves carried some taint, possibly demonic, but couldn’t be sure. The source he felt was definitely up in the mountains where the “ABM” site lay in wait. The wise-woman of the village spoke of dark dreams, and something dreadful in the pits below the ground awaking.

Resting the night in Potu, the party set off through the blighted forest. There were no animals or birds, just insects. Mr. Dwight’s sense lead up to a buried structure. Gabriel noted that the whole area had been turned over by hordes of insects coming in and out of the structure. Digging down to a door, an old screen lit up and a woman spoke

She introduced herself as Janette Armstrong, and spoke of many ancient things. The insects were her work, but insisted it was done with care. Mr. Dwight pressed her to ask that we come and see if her work had been subverted without her knowledge. The company was let in and led to a ‘conference’ room where there were three identical women. Her story made little sense to some, but apparently she and her companions had been sleeping since the Fall, and she was the only one awake. She was using the ancients systems to coordinate many copies of herself and “generic engineering” to gather energy from the forest with insects of her creation.

What became apparently quickly was that her perceptions of the outside world were an illusion. She thought that the insects had careful pruned the forest per her instructions instead of laying waste to the surroundings. When Mr. Dwight and Khrion took her outside, she still didn’t perceive the world as it was. Mr. Dwight put up a ward to block out the influence of her ‘wifi’ and she immediately passed out. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Olis and Gabriel fought a pitch battle with three of the ‘clones’ who exhibited demonic powers and traits as they fought. Mr. Dwight and Khiron tried to wake the woman with little effect, then joined the fray along with the remaining ‘clones’. All pretense of a peaceful resolution as destroyed and the company had to put down four of the six Janette’s, only to hear the demon below rising in response.

Olis, Mr. Dwight, Khiron, Gabriel

The strange events at Mt. Tabor took some time to piece together. The “etheric device” laid waste to the mountain and the nearby village, and threw the company out of time. When the dust settled, a year had past in a matter of minutes.

Making their way out of the wreckage and returning to Gateway City (mostly by foot), the company found that Justuss had assumed us dead, and collected the reward for the Raptor Egg for himself. He had kept Mr. Dwight’s belongings safe and his affairs in order, so there were no hard feelings beyond the usual grumblings and threats.

After a week or so of recovery, rest, and Khiron getting his own affairs back in order, the party decided to head back in search of the “ABM” site. On the way to Little Rock, Mr. Dwight was ordered to report to his superiors in Jackson. The detour proved informative, but Mr. Dwight talked his way out of taking on the Protectorates’ current crises and the company continued to Fort Smith.

From the strange map we had discovered, we knew the “ABM” site was somewhere in the area, but with hundreds of miles of wilderness to search it seemed a challenging task. Olis’ attempt to gather information from the local children landed him in jail, while Gabriel’s attempt almost landed him in bed with a lonely trapper. In the end, Khiron’s tinkering combined with Mr. Dwight’s magic located the site in a matter of hours. Getting there, however, was another matter…

As recounted by Mr. E. Dwight

The words of the bear trapper didn’t necessarily fill me with delight. The local despot, Lord Sticks, only came down from his mountain fortress for the Bi-Annual Virgin Sacrifice, or some shit. He pretty much had the locals well under his thumb and no one had ever ventured into Mount Tabor. It sounded like this was going to be a tough nut to crack – if we could crack it at all. And given that there were bound to be local snitches and even loyalists, informing all and sundry of our presence seemed like a bad idea. We didn’t reckon we would have much success charming him none. So a thorough reconnaissance, from a distance and without alerting the locals was recommended and agreed upon.

The Noisy Cricket showed us a pretty tight looking affair: one of them big ol’ blast door type things – not exactly something we could bust down with our puny firepower. Khiron went up to provide a better perspective. He wasn’t gone but an hour when he reported back finding something interesting out in the woods on the eastern slope of Mount Tabor. He was able to guide us overland through the vines and the briars. Thankfully, even Thorne was in good shape due to all our pounding through the weeds over the last couple of months.

The interesting thing turned out to be some sort of large concrete pad with weird bent over plastic pipes coming up at the corners. Fuck if we could figure out what it was. Damned Ancients and their cryptic crap. But some poking around the weeds did turn up a metal hatch – thanks again to Khiron and his nose for things out of place. It was just as well, Gabby, our erstwhile scout, was laid-up with some sort of gut bug and barely able to keep up with us (not that he had been much of a help of late). After some prodding, speculating, and magical scrying (by Thorne and Myself), we concluded that the hatch could only be some sort of long forgotten escape route out of the bowels of the Mount Tabor complex. Hot damn! I think these Aldemari are some kind of lucky charm.

With some effort we were able to spring the hatch – it opened into a long dark and musty shaft that seemed to drop into the very depths of the mountain. I sent down the Cricket: ladder rungs all the way down and some sort of security door at the bottom. Well fuck, down we went. The security door proved to be impervious to our usual magical means of entry (blast the fuck out of it!). Thorne however was able to provide some spiritual ghost hackery to get us through. Damned convenient. He or she is a spooky motherfucker most of the time and usually about as reliable as fuck-all (something I often ask Marcel: How long has he been putting up with this?) – but sometimes she manages to pull one out. Case in point.

The tunnel beyond the security door led to a much disused hatch into the main giggery-pokery power chamber of the site – complete with a window in the door. Who the fuck does that? The chamber beyond was pretty damned impressive. Lots of Ancient artifacts and machinery all centered on some sort of etheric flux capacitor – which according to Thorne, Lord Sticks was using to repeatedly shred ghosts. Apparently that is bad. Our suspicion was that he was doing it to prolong his life. Initially we could see him in the center of the etheric flow and when he emerged he looked brand-spanking new. There also seemed to be some sort of vampire manning the controls. Thorne was not taking the whole ghost killing/un-killing thing well and insisted we needed to stop it right fucking now. The rest of us were a bit more cautious – Lord Sticks looked pretty bad ass and who knew how powerful the vampire was or how many minions were close by. Many plans were discussed and discarded with the usual amount of despair and deconstruction.

While we were plotting we noticed that Lord Sticks and his vampy had left the chamber on some errand. The hatch into the chamber wasn’t alarmed or hatched – for whatever reason – so we rolled in. The first order of business was closing the really huge blast door that led to the rest of the complex…which turned out to be simply accomplished. With that done we had free range of the power chamber and all the high energy machinery within. Thorne and Khiron quickly moved to secure the control booth and shut down the etheric-spirit gizmo. I was left to toy with the gadgetry in the center of the chamber. Thorne summoned up one of her spirit friends to “hack” the control booth. Which enabled her to shut down the spirit shredder. While Thorne was attempting to communicate with the post-shredded spirits, weird stuff started to go down in the main chamber. With the etheric-spiritual flows stopped, the local “screens” flashed gibberish asking if the Standard Restart Sequence should be started. Seemed like a good idea – I pressed the YES button. The fucking shit storm commenced.

I’ve seen some weird shit. Not “ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion” level of shit. But definitely near-Biblical level weirdness. This fucking pegged the meter.

I’m not even sure I can accurately describe what happened. But quite suddenly we didn’t seem to be under Mount Tabor any more.

At first we were amid a hall of chanting skeletons.

THEN

A large glass walled room with a huge ass dragon, lots of glass and shiny metal in the background.

THEN

A grungy-greasy industrial chamber with a window to the stars. They were shouting about “a singularity containment failure in the electro-gravitic drive”.

THEN

Back to Mount Tabor wrecked to hell – but five years from when we had left.

Ser Marcel, Olis, Gabriel, Khiron, Mr. Dwight

After months in this weird and unfamiliar landscape full of “rads” this and “etheric” that, Gabriel was really looking forward to the next phase of the quest for a return to Aldamere. Only a few unpleasant hours riding in “The Beast”, then finally a long trek on foot. Gabriel had spent many years walking forest paths and game-trails, and at last Ser Marcel’s men in the company of Mr. Dwight and Khiron were setting off on an honest-to-goodness hike. Quietly Gabriel also hoped to set Mr Dwight straight about his scouting prowess in the woods. Alas, this luck turned sour quickly.

Upon encountering “Prospector Pete” on the trail, the party paused to determine how best to deal with a monstrous lizard/bird creature that lay ahead—Justuss had always insisted they were called “Jesus Lizards” for no apparent reason. In any case, when the suggestion was made to bait the creature away as the party passed, Gabriel set off to hunt down a deer confident in hunter’s training. After many hours of finding little game-sign, he finally set sights on a deer, even if it was a little scrawny and perhaps ill, and let loose with his bow to bring it down.

Meanwhile, the party was gathering supplies to craft some sort of hobbling trap, when the creature let off into the forest, leaving the path clear. The company contacted Gabriel via one of Khiron’s contraptions, and informed him of the good news. It seemed, that the silent shot failed to pierce the throat of the creature which let out a terrible death-rattle which had caught the huge beast’s attention. He quickly realized that he was now the hunted. With some quick action, and a little aid of the fallen deer carcass which he had no time to do more than throw off in the other direction, the party was able to evade the monster. Putting the incident behind them, the company continued on the trek.

Some ways later the party encountered a strange object, a yellow ball sitting atop a pike in the ground, which seemed to repel animals and keep them away from the area. Realizing the day was growing dark, and signs of smoke across the valley, the Gabriel set off to find a suitable stealthy camp for the party to wait out the night. Again, his luck was sour and he was unable to locate anything suitable in the area, only to have Mr. Dwight note that he was standing on a half-buried hatch right beneath his feet.

Exploring within the company found the entrance way to a survival shelter built into the mountain. The wall had apparently collapsed, blocking further entrance so the party settled down their beds in the cave. In the middle of the night, Olis was attacked by something within the deep mounds of earth. With Mr. Dwight’s magics, the party discovered and engaged some kind of ‘mole-men’ with the power to move the earth at their will. The enemies proved to be skilled ambushers, filling the area with a rain of stone, dirt, and debris. Mr. Dwight was able to shield much of the party with his wards, but alas Gabriel had stepped closer to fire his shotgun and was by chance beyond the protection for another onslaught. Ser Marcel and Olis engaged several at close range, Khrion and Mr. Dwight took them at range, and Gabriel tried to keep from becoming a casualty.

In the aftermath, the party found a supply of “energy bars” by Master Clif, and a role of “Duct Tape” which pleased Mr. Dwight to no end. Taking refuge in the shelter proper, the party was able to recover and recoup before pressing on their journey. Gabriel had disquieting dreams of Saints sitting in judgement as the sound of Mr. Dwight’s laughter drifted through his mind.

Heading down into the forested valley, Gabriel set off to scout out a way around the large lake or find the signs of a boat. By the time the party caught up, Gabriel had been snared by a bear trap set by a local hunter. Mr. Dwight’s delighted scorn was as unpleasant as the day before had been long.

None-the-less, the party did learn from the huntsman some of the town and the “Lord Sticks” who apparently claimed domain over the Lake Tabor area and dwelled within the ancient “High Energy Physics” research area the company was seeking…

Ser Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, Mr. Dwight

Scouting deep into the bowels of the dam lead Marcel and company into a great chamber—Khiron referred to it as the turbine room—which a number of strange aquatic creatures had made their lair. Exploring the area as Gabriel kept a close watch on the creatures, Mr. Dwight used his arcane magics to locate a source of the rare element palladium, which lead the party up to a ‘control room’. There the hunt for the reagent came to end not because we found what we had looked for, but instead we found what we really needed: a very detailed map.

The map in the ancient control room of the “Military Power District” revealed many secrets, even more once Khiron was able to provide it with additional power. The party found locations and details on a number of “DOE” sites scattered throughout the mountain range, including the most intriguing “Mt. Tabor High Energy Site” which was not in fact where we had found the infestation of EYFOB.

After taking some time to take detailed notes from the map, as well as securing the information by changing the map’s “display mode”, the party then set about leaving the ruins. Unfortunately, the local creatures took much more interest in the party attempting to leave than they did when the party first entered—perhaps they had grown bored. In any case, the pack of animals (maybe part fish or salmon? part badger or wolverine?) attacked and the company as forced to respond with violence. Mr Dwight’s gun lanced out with arcane power, Thorne froze one creature solidly with hir’s Weird Ways, and Olis and Ser Marcel fought back the razor-sharp claws with spear and sword and shield.

As the company emerged from underground, a powerful storm was coming down from the mountains which necessitated finding secure shelter. Just down the road was a sturdy survival shelter that Khiron and Mr. Dwight said had likely been built by Mor-mons. While it provided more than adequate shelter for the company and Mr. Dwight’s vehicle for the night, a chamber beneath proved to be infested with something deeply malevolent. Even Thorne was shaken by the encounter as some things were never meant to be found. Arcane bolts, fire, and even holy blasts were needed to again lay it to rest.

Once the storm passed, the group returned to Hot Springs to prepare for an extended trip on foot into the mountains. The party secured provisions, drove up as far as possible in the Beast, and then set out on foot. There they were greeted on the road by a prospector making haste back the way from whence they came…

Ser Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, Mr. Dwight

While taking stock of the company’s options for dealing with the “Iowans” partying loudly into the wee hours outside the walls of Mountain View, Mr. Dwight got an itchy trigger finger and set out to snipe “The Karl”. His patience was rewarded, and the well-placed shot tore into the huge man’s shoulder. Alas, the Karl had some sort of “etheric warding” and the wound was not fatal. It did, however, prove to be highly disruptive to their festivous mood.

Khiron prepared more contributions, and Gabriel worked his way into plant it in and among their ‘speaker truck’. Gabriel’s efforts to go unnoticed as an intruder proved a bit too effective, however, and was pulled into the event as a participant. The explosion was at once both awe-inspiring, and deeply disturbing. Attempting to get away, Gabriel ducked into the cab of one of important supply vehicles, but being unfamiliar with the controls ended up crashing it into the walls of Mountain View. At this point, all hell broke lose and the party became a violent mob.

Khiron and Thorne joined the fray, with Mr. Dwight contributing layers of ice onto the truck which turned out to be full of a volatile liquid. Ultimately the party was successful in turning back the frenzied attack, while a not insignificant portion of the Iowans packed up.

With the siege broken in a messy and violent manner, the company enjoyed the quiet hospitality of Mountain View, and choice pickings of their salvage—the damage to the walls was offset by the readily available supply of high-grade fuel. Alas, there was little of the sought-after rare element, so the party continued on to Hot Springs.

Hot Springs proved to a prosperous town, and there we were pointed to a metallurgist named Edwin. There was no real leads on “palladium metal” to be found there, but we were pointed to the town Little Rock as another possible site. Before leaving, the party stop in old Hot Springs and found the remains of a great, broken damn. Scouting the area, Mr. Dwight noticed an overgrown entrance. Gabriel saw traces of some animal, perhaps a large cat, in the area as well.

Ser Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron

While awaiting the crafting of some additional gear for dealing with the FOEYFOB problem at the local DOE site, the party decided to journey to Owichita in the hopes of finding required rare components. Initially travelling with a caravan proved useful, but Thorne suggested the party take a side-trip over to Mountain View as a potentially promising source.

After some rough-terrain travel, Marcel and company found that the town of Mountain View was both a likely source of rare components, and under siege from a gang of rough folk. Khiron was able to communicate with the town elders through a “ham radio”, and were promised suitable reward should we be able to break the siege.

Upon nightfall and moving on the less patrolled upper-side, Gabriel and Khiron set upon a group of look-outs in the hopes of gaining more information. The gang proved to be well trained, but with luck the party was able to secure two prisoners.

Thorne used hir weird ways to gain the confidence of the male prisoner, but once the interrogation was complete there was some consternation about how to deal with them. Ser Marcel put the first to the sword feeling there was no alternative, which Thorne took great offense to—although in the ethos of these “Vikings” death by the sword was preferable. In any case, it was decided to keep the woman asleep until the siege was broken in the hopes of turning her over to the town for justice.

The information gained did prove the force was quite large, well-trained, and ruthless although not without a code of a kind. The party set about preparing materials in the hopes of destroying the sieging-forces supplies through stealth…

Marcel, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, and Mr. Dwight

Having successfully trapped one of the creatures—Thorne referred to it as a “worker”—, the company encountered some strange cat-like creature attempting to gain an easy meal. Mr. Dwight felt that firing his pistol and creating a massive wound would be the most efficient way to scare the panther-like hunter away from our quarry. It worked. Gabriel, however, discovered a short while later that the creature was a pack-hunter. Having secured the E.Y.F.O.B. sample in the apparatus Khiron built, Justus applied speed to resolve the affair.

On the trip back to Springfield, Thorne and Mr. Dwight engaged is some arcane shenanigans which ended up killing the bug by cutting it off from it’s “hive mind”. Despite the set back in keeping a live specimen, the party sought to find an expert in these matters—or at least an enthusiastic and knowledgeable amateur. Such a man turned out to be Evird, an apprentice to the owner of Trafalga’s Weird Widgetry in Springfield. After some rather messy examinations which put many off their food and delighted Thorne, it was determined that various methods of defense would be needed to have a chance of searching the former D.O.E. building that was their nest, and that some rare materials would be needed for the preparations.

In the meantime, the party arranged passage with another caravan that would be headed to Hot Springs, the rumored location of another ancient site which could turn up the needed materials and valuable salvage.

Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, and Mr. Dwight

Having driven off the creature dubbed “Lizard Jesus”, Mr. Dwight, Khiron, and Gabriel picked over the remains of the few fallen “Road Rash” gang members while Justus cooked the severed tip of the lizard’s tail for a meal—we were assured that “the rads are cooked right out”. The remainder of the trip to Springfield in Iron Home was reasonably uneventful, although many hours in the vehicle over rough terrain was no more comfortable than days riding in a saddle.

Springfield was an imposing sight, with a great smooth stone facade built into the mountain, overlooking a surface outpost where “guests” were expected to stay. The caravan put into this “foreign quarter”, and Mr Yezzel got touch with his contact and sponsor in Iron Home, a merchant named Yord Stonefoot. Thorne seemed disappointed to discover the so called “dwarves” were nothing more than rough-looking mountain folk, but was soon distracted by the strange clothing worn by folk the locals called “Pueblos”.

After some discussion, Yord agreed to sponsor the party to enter Springfield proper to conduct business in the market, as well as pointing us to Mildred Steadfast, keeper of ‘antiquities and old shit’. The invitation was conditional on good behavior and providing Yord a cut of any proceeds, and distinctly only a ‘day pass’ as strangers were not trusted to stay in the city proper after dusk. The market and it’s denizens proved more than interesting to both Khiron and Thorne, and the party was able to suggest a number of items of interest to Mr Yezzel for the return trip of the caravan. Thorne in particular was able to trade for a coveted raptor egg, which if it can be returned safely to our patron could be worth a good deal of favor—“a side quest” as Thorne had told Lady Nagastor. Mildred also proved to be a font of information providing the location of the “DOE Site” in “Old Springfield” as well as hints of another such site near the ancient town of “Hot Springs” in Owitichta territory.

Having been warned that the “DOE Site” was overrun with E.Y.F.O.U.F.O. bugs (Eat Your Face Off Ugly Fuck Off bugs), the group approached carefully with Gabriel and Mr. Dwight’s “drone” keeping careful watch. The area near “Old Springfield” was seldom travelled by men as the sense of dread and suffering from the cataclysm of the ancients was still palpable—Thorne confirmed it was something disturbing on the spirit plane or perhaps I should say something specifically disturbing on the sprit plane. After some searching among the overgrown ruins, Gabriel and Olis were able to spot crawlspaces into the collapsed structure that had insect tracks—large but not immense in size. Khiron and Mr. Dwight also noted strange well-cleared holes on the top which were likely ventilation maintained by the bugs.

Thorne integrated the shade of one of the bugs past victims and confirmed much of what Mildred had told us, and added that the animals stayed inside in the day and strayed out at night. Mr. Dwight sent in his drone to explore the nest to discover a well-preserved DOE site and lots of dangerous, fast, and powerful warrior bugs—the drone was recovered but the worse for wear having been nearly crushed by one of the warriors’ pincers. Gabriel walked out the tracks to determine the foraging range of the nest, and the party set to create traps along the perimeter with a camp some ways back to keep Justus calm about the E.Y.F.O.U.F.O. bugs (also called “brain bugs” by some). Late in the night, a trap was indeed triggered but as the party arrived to inspect the catch they quickly found they were not the only ones to hear the alarm call.

Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, and Mr. Dwight

With the aid of the machine-spirit that Thorne seemed quite fond of, and whose secrecy Mr. Dwight seemed little concerned about maintaining, the company learned of the most promising “DOESITE” to explore. Alas, it lay within the confines of another land known as “Iron Home”.

The information-merchant—and apparently unpleasant employer to Mr. Dwight and Khiron—Kavella offered to smuggle the party into Iron Home in exchange for dealing with some local concern in Gateway City. It seems an old friend of Mr. Dwight, a former smuggler and fellow “scruffy nerf-herder”, Matticks had taken over security at “The Wall” which controls access between the city and the docks. He was considered “too clean” for Kavella’s tastes, and we were told to solve the problem in whatever matter we wished.

After some tentative discussions, Mr. Dwight, Thorne, and Gabriel came clean with the situation and learned a it of Matticks’ situation the workings of Gateway City. His benefactor (and apparently lover) was of one of the great houses, and he suggested we come to dinner “in costume”—the locals find the armor we arrived wearing quaint. In any case, Clarrisa Nagastor was pleasant if aloof, and eventually offered to provide some method for reaching Iron Home without Kavella’s aid. She also mentioned that she would pay handsomely for “raptor eggs” should we acquire any on our journey.

A few days later a caravan master “Mr. Yezell” called upon the company, and the group set off on the road to Springfield. Travel in the wilds of this world is fraught with strange perils, as the caravan of trucks was set upon first by “tribals” on strange scorpion-horses, which had left some sort of trap in our path that Khiron set off with a quite loud explosion that in turn attracted an immense creature—dubbed “Lizard Jesus” in later retellings of the events. The company earned their keep guarding the caravan, although somewhat the worse for wear.

Mr. Dwight, Khiron, Thorne, Marcel, and Olis

I’m never quite certain how things end up the way they do. But there we were, trying to break open some sort of DOE site in the ruins of Aimseyeohwa – somewhere in that nebulous area not quite controlled by the Hawkeye Empire, or left to rage and wreckers outside of it. The weird little muties called it the Cave of the Cooked Food God, or some shit. Fucking great. We seemed to have deactivated most of the external defenses (don’t ask how, I’m not sure I recall). But the vault door required some sort of pass-key. The weird girl,Thorne, claimed that the ancient spirit she was channeling could get us past the door – but we would need to reconfigure the ident cards the muties had given us at some OTHER Ancient Site. It seemed like a ruse to get us to leave, not sure why. But then again I’m not sure Thorne is anything but some sort of very deluded lunatic. Half of what she says is 100% horse shit the other half is so crazy that it can’t be credited. I’ve seen these “readers” at other Ancient Sites and they are difficult to spoof – but not impossible. Usually I know ahead of time and bring a Cracker, not a talent we are currently gifted with. I thought maybeKhiron had some faculty – but he gave his usual blank look. Damned fly boy. The rest of the Aldemari (them so strange foreign folks) were even more baffled. I reckoned I could try some jiggery-pokery, but most of what I do in that regard is to make holes in things or transcend space and time – ain’t none of that gonna be terribly useful in this sitch. I turned away for a second to confer with Justus about maybe rigging a door buster, and suddenly Thorne has us in. So that is neat. Not sure what happened, something to do with spirits. Why is it always fuckin’ spirits with that girl? Ain’t we got enough problems with the living? Douche-baggery on an epic scale.

So, in we go. Pretty standard layout. The important shit is going to be down and probably under further security. Fuckin’ Ancients and their preoccupation with burying things deep in the ground. Ain’t like it made a big fuckin’ difference as far as I can tell. But salvage is salvage. Or in this case, we need to figure out what the fuck happened at SITE 109. No way old Doc Cartweight can avoid us forever. And no way I can continue to put off Mr. Caville. More douche-baggery. There is shit in the complex, but down we go.

And then things get weird.

Big fuckin’ open area, lined with gantries, conduit, and all sorts of confusing shit. In the center of which are eight big fuckin’ shiny cylinders connected to all manner of glowy tubes and wires and crap. All of it pulsing with crackling blue-white light and ‘lectricity. Fuckin’ great. The Thorne girl does something stupid, I know, big shock, and turns on the party – firing off all manner of hocus-pokus. Voices in our heads coming out of the nowhere. More folk trying to beat one-another. Weird ass mental storms sweeping the chamber and frying everyone’s brains. Minotaurs? Fuck me! We finally figure out that the shiny silver cylinders are filled with old psychic brain soup that are causing all the rampant crap. Smashing the cylinders – with the accompanying spraying and dripping goo – weakens the brain attacks and allows us to incapacitate those folks that have been brain dominated and smash further cylinders. Finally, all of them are smashed and we are all plum fuckin’ beat.

It would appear that this complex is some fuckin’ Ancient bio-engineering, brain mutant making, laboratory. The fuckers intentionally hooked up a bunch of fuckin’ brains to try to make some massive fucked up brain beast. Fuck me. That went well. After all the smoke cleared we were able to find some interesting doo-dads and geegaws. Fuck if I know what they do but they are probably dangerous. But just maybe we can find some fuckin’ clues as to what the DOE was up to elsewhere.

Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, and Khiron

The six horse-riders arrayed out in front the group claimed to be in the employ of the “King of Madrid”, but they were disinclined to provide recompense for the damage done to the hired barge. After some banter, the party engaged the men and only one got away with Marcel finding he lacked the knack for gunplay.. Unsure of the next steps, Thorne used hir heretical magics to capture and interrogate the shade of one of the gunmen which Thorne took to calling “Shell Case Pete”. He revealed more of the situation in Runnel, and warned of the power of “artillery” as well as the arrival of more reinforcements. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, the company gave Runnel a wide berth and continued on the way to Des Moines.

Arriving at what was rumored to be the town of “AIMS”, Gabriel noticed traces of what looked to be children’s tracks, and Khiron used his “etheric jets” to scout from above to confirm the group was being tailed. Setting up an impromptu shopping stall lured the strange and quite diminutive folk out from the forest. One of the folk traded for what he knew of the area, and lead the party to a strange cave they called the “cave of the cooked food god”. They told of strangers entering and only cooked bits of animals ever being recovered.

Gabriel and Khiron cautiously entered to see a long hallway that ended in a strange metal door. After some investigation, two wand-like weapons revealed themselves and began to fire invisible but highly painful burning rays down the hall. A barrage of gunfire and one of Khiron’s strange “ice bombs” damaged the mechanism sufficiently to keep them from fully cooking either of the party members. Despite Thorne’s healing efforts, the pain of the wounds remained for some time.

Marcel, Olis, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, and Mr. Dwight

As had been arranged, the key to Cartwright’s abode lead Ser Marcel and the rest of the company to his residence: a simple but spacious apartment. After some time, Gabriel noted that the attic seemed a bit smaller than one might expect from the other floors. Mr. Dwight then used his arcane pistol—which he referred to by name as “Clementine”, so perhaps it’s actually a haunted arcane pistol—to remove some warding that hid Professor Cartwright’s secret laboratory/office from our view. Within were found a few key clues, including a collection of papers that Mr. Dwight said were contained in “plastic binders”—apparently made from the skin of dinosaurs. Thorne’s impulsive curiosity also found a secret note with some numbers, and a poison needle. Mr. Dwight used some kind of stick called a ‘detox-stick’ on hir which seemed to hurt a great deal, but also quickly dissipated the effects of whatever poison had been on the needle.

Leaving the dwelling, making sure not to take any of it’s possessions lest the strange golem guarding it take offense, the party made their way to Cartwright’s bank. Mr. Dwight used the numbers that Thorne found to gain access to a ‘safe deposit box’ and within he found a copy of Cartwright’s journal that had been left for his cousin. While leaving the bank, Gabriel noticed that one of Mr. Dwight’s rivals from the road into town was making a point of following him around town perhaps to leverage his investigation for their own profit.

After some study, it was decided to return the journal to his kin along with the key, and then the party set off up river towards a location of interest. Gabriel did not take well to water travel, and while in route the party’s boat was attacked by pirates. The attack was quickly repelled, but left the craft unable to continue the journey.

Taking to land with Khiron in the lead on some horse-like vehicle, the nearest town proved to be under the sway of the same river pirates. Taking time to parlay with their outriders, Mr. Dwight and his cousin Justice drew them out while the rest of the party lay in wait…

So there we were, innocently travelling down the body of a mostly dead, immortal snake god, when things began to get weird. The Serpent man who we freed said something wasn’t quite right ahead and told us to avoid it. Intrepid travelers we may be, but I don’t know fuck-all about changing course yig-back. Turns out, neither did anyone else. Something loomed ahead in the impossible dimension spanning snake void – weirdo, somehow orderly patterns of time-space anomaly fireworks cascaded across the infinity of the void. Avoid them! Shit. We didn’t. Fuck! Boom!

Although, maybe some of us did because when we blasted through the psychadelic hellscape – Aetheric Pulsar – we were missing our Gretta, Father Aerik, and the Snakefather.

So, disgorged from the space vagina, we behold… assholes! Not literally. Two gents in funny dress. One like a rag merchant with an odd hat, Dwight, and another with loads of strange armor and two big sticks poking out his back, Kyron. (Cowboy, Aeronaught – fuck off Chezza, mine were better)They speak like they’ve got more time than us. Everything. is reeeaal. draaawn. ouuuut. Although they do speak a wee bit closer to me than everyone else does, except for the sounding brain damaged part, although the way Olis reacts sometimes, I might give that impression as well. I definitely feel that way about you.

Also, Marcel is Possessed by the witch of Belout, so that’s neat.

So, big dome, made of shiny glowing shit that would probably be shiny even if it wasn’t glowing. Some sort of synthetic material.SITE 109. Dwigth says there’s not many lawmen in Gateway City. Sounds like a Yen Enoth analog? Are we in an alternate dimension? I explain this to them. I explain about the snake monoliths – quill through two pieces of parchment, you know the drill. Time-space vortices Also that probably, we’re not on the same page, possibly two different pages in the same book. Kiddie stuff, you know. I think Dwight gets it, but I’m not certain.

They ramble on about someone called Cartweight. He’s apparently a real DOOSH. Which means ancient and learned. Also, I’m apparently a witch here also. Dwight and Karen, Kyron? Something. They’re bounty hunters or mercs or slavers or some combination thereof. They’ve got GUNS, which are like wands, but harder to use. You have put little bits in them before they’re good for murder. Chemical, alchemical, and mechanical – cartridges. Magic can be channeled through them, Mr. Dwight knows this art.

Charon says he’s an Aeronaught, but won’t teach me how to be one also. Says it’s really hard. He’s very impressed with himself. They work for Ryquist Caville, who wanted this Cartweight. He’s going to be very cross with them, so to make up for this, they gather up all kinds of shit from inside SITE 109! CIRCUITBOARDS, etc.

We learn about RADS – which is a unit of measuring poison in the everything.

Outside is a jungle, very beautiful, but also dangerous? We are loaded into THEBEAST. A metal golem-wagon – automobile – with an angry demon trapped inside – Aetheric Converter. They have loads of men waiting outside, which sort of work for them, but also seem hostile about not getting paid. There is a BACK HO, which is another frightful automaton.

On the way back we’re ambushed by some other assholes who laugh at Dwight when they find out he hasn’t got Cartweight. They have yet another automaton. It’s bipedal and armed with a GATLINGGUN. Gatling means “kill everything.”

Dwight: “Cars can’t attack.”

The place we are is called the LEBARKMOUNTAINS. It is west of GATEWAYCITY.

Doctors wear leather. I am upgraded to a Witch/Doctor/Prostitute. Witchdoctorprostitute.

Arriving in Gateway city – which is a big bowl, filled with buildings, surrounded by fake rock walls – ferrocrete -.

I’m told not to go near the CHURCH OF THEREDEEMER because I’m posessed. But, since it’s spirits instead of demons, maybe I won’t be burned at the stake. Maybe. Fuck yes, religion is still shit, mostly.

Mayoral Palace is where the rulers live.

We go to the Inquisitive Mew. We meet the fat man and the gaunt man. Fat man is Mr. Caville. He smells of cheese and turnip, innit? Something close. Cartweight owed him money, and now he thinks that’s Dwight’s and Charken’s problem. He postures about it, makes the spooky 7 foot tall monster grab shit from the top shelves to intimidate us with his book keeping skills. All this is bollocks because clearly, what’s more important than some twat owing him money is that his men have brought him proof of inter-dimensional travel, and real life ALIENS. Because, technically, that’s what we are.

I broker an amazing deal in which tubby funds our exploration of this weird ass place, we get to explore post apocalyptic ruins – did I mention that this place had their apocalypse already? Because they did, and it wasn’t demons or summat. It was them. They blew themselves up, because reasons! – look for other aether-whatsit makers – Aetheric Pulsar and I suppose send ourselves home, or somewhere new. Fatty fat wants the tech for himself. Personally, I think Dwight and K should just use it for themselves and fuck the creep, but we don’t care because we’ll have gone through the portal on to whatever comes next.

There’s an arch in the river filled with ghosts and some “stupid flying god.” “SPIRIT OF SAINTLOUIS!”

There’s only one moon. It’s called THEMOON, which is rubbish. I name it Lawrence. It likes it. You all saw that it does.

I bought loads of clothes. I am now PUNKROCK. This is a very worthwhile thing to be. I will be getting various things pierced. This pleases me.

We go to the voluptuous pint glass or whatever. Stein? Swan? They’ve got whores and drugs. I’m a witchdoctorprostitute, so I get pissed and defile myself to an extent that impresses even me. I AM WHOLE, give unto me all the whores! Chezza likes it. Are you sure it’s not just your idea of Chezza who you’re pretending likes it? Pretty sure, the lines are almost gone, way past blurred. This is healthy.

We go to the University where Cartweight worked. I incorporate Professor Frederick whitehorse Hernandez, pre-columbian Archaeologist. He worked in Cartweight’s office before the world blew up. He’s definitely a DOUCHE – he knows how to spell it.

I speak like I’m from GREATBRITAIN. Which must be the best place on this world.

Cartweight was researching DOE sights, which aren’t places where they’ve loads of female deer. It’s DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY. I learn about the PRESIDENT OF THEUNITEDSTATES OF AMERICA, which was the king before the Boom! POTUS was a very powerful wizard and he had a council of other wizards which helped him run USA. I think he was worried that they’d try and take power from him, because he kept them in an enchanted cabinet, which he could enter, and meet with them to share their wisdom. Anyway, the DOE Wizard maybe created all the portal sites. So we’ve got to seek them out and find another one.

Guy named Oppenheimer created the ATOMICBOMB. When he did, he said “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Yep. Asshole.

So, loads of places to go. West of PUEBLO – Cannibals there. TRINITYSITE, where they made the bombs. NORAD. TENNESSEEVALLEY. GROOMLAKE in NEVADA. This is where the alphabet men made secret plans.

By the way. The reason Oppenheimer made the bombs. Everybody in the world was at war with these guys called the NOT-Zs. Really awful, killed everybody and yelled. Put JEWS in ovens for no good reason. They had skulls on their hats, so really awful. Anyway, they made bombs so that nobody like that ever happened again and ended up probably using them against one of the groups that helped them fight the NOT-Zs. THEREDS!

Ser Marcel, Thorne, Gabriel, Khiron, Mr. Dwight

Having little choice, Ser Marcel’s company set off into the dim twilight of the Body of Yigg, seeking escape from the wrath of necromancer Crode. Thorne seemed both thrilled to experience travels beyond, and deeply troubled at having left the object our quest, his sister-shade Chezza, to her new life. Ser Marcel was somewhat shaken as well, having been unsettled more than the rest of us by his first trip through the silvery mists. This time, however, the company had a guide, an ancestor of the Skreet, a true “snake-man”. Master Vakarn had said his people had created the portals, although they did not necessarily function as intended. Before the party could probe into the mysteries only known by such a living fossil, the mists became alive with colorful showers and bright flashes. Our guide thought to us a name for the phenomenon, a “etheric pulsar”, which he warned us to avoid. Before the party could move safely away, however, there was a great flash and dull thudding blast that threw the group asunder.

Moments later, Ser Marcel, Thorne, Olis, and Gabriel found themselves in a strange room of glowing white walls, ears still ringing from the explosion. An acrid smell of ozein filled the air, like having been too close to a lighting strike. There was no sign of Gretta, Father Aerik, or our guide. Instead, we were faced with two angry men shouting at us in some strange dialect of Hrondene and threatening us with arcane wands. After a few tense moments, the strangers introduced themselves as Khiron—a strange man festooned in metal armor with bizarre pauldrons—and a Mr. Dwight (later found to be a Mr. Earnest Dwight)—a mage of some ilk wearing a leather cloak-coat and quite eager to demonstrate the deadliness of his arcane tools.

Alas, there was no sign of the portal, our missing companions, or the quarry that Mr. Dwight and Khiron had been in the process of securing, leaving Ser Marcel’s troop with scant options but to accompany the strangers back to “Gateway City”, a town of some size. Leaving the strange room in which they arrived, a place the local folks called “Site 109”, the travel back to the city was full of wonders for Thorne and uneasy danger for the rest: A great metal wagon that moved at great speed with no yolk or beast of burden, a towering golem armed with a huge barrel-shaped wand that threatened Mr. Dwight and his property on the trip back, roads made of some poured rock, and city walls seemingly carved from immense stone (the locals spoke of ‘ferro-concrete’).

After months in Yen Enoth, it was both familiar and deeply unsettling to again be in large city full of strange wonders and noise. After taking a little time to rest and recover, the party accompanied Mr. Dwight and Khiron to meet with a local merchant-lord. The meeting did not seem to go as well as Mr. Dwight had hoped, but in the end it was decided that the fellowship assembled would seek out other places there the now-missing Professor Cartwright had researched in the hopes of finding another portal back home or perhaps finding out what became of Gretta and Father Aerik. The trail began at the Professor’s office, which provided both a great deal of information and scant solid leads as to where such “technology” might be found. His cousin, another professor, graciously agreed to make arrangements to visit Professor’s Cartwright’s abode.

An Unfortunate Escape and Unexpected Arrival

Four from Elsewhere
Chapter 1: An Unfortunate Escape and Unexpected Arrival
By Khiron Vaan Ascot

Ryquist Caville had been most specific in his instructions to Mr. Dwight and I, he wanted a return on his investment from Professor Pembril Cartwright as well as the man himself dealt with, he emphasized the return on investment part. And somehow a ricocheting bullet, burnt out computer terminal, giant FWOOSH of light and Professor Pembril and his lovely assistant disappearing into who-knows-where, with all of their research notes, was not going to fit the bill.
By Meto Suway’s dark arse this mission was not going well.
First it had taken an inordinate amount of time to find the dear doctor out here in the wilds of the western jungles of Gateway City, which at least allowed me time to gather some alchemical reagents, but it used up our expense voucher as well for the most part.
Having finally found the quack his guards and workers put up enough fight to make life difficult although we finally managed to get the workers to stop shooting after the guards went down.
Making our way through the maze of collapsed buildings, tunnels and substructure, being wary of traps and the remaining guards we managed to catch up with the good Professor as he feverish manipulated controls on a computer along with his rather lovely assistant whose name I never caught.
And then the FWOOSH.
After my eyes cleared I noticed two things, first that there seemed to be four bodies at the site where previously the Professor had stood, and they looked nothing like anything I had seen before with armor that seemed right out of a museum, spears, swords and one even had a pointy hat! Were they some sort of Cosplay troupe?
Second was the fact that Mr. Dwight was busily yelling “What did you do?” at me as if I were somehow to blame for this disaster. “It is not my fault!” I replied back, which did nothing to settle him down, as it never does, but by the Founders, I was not about to let my him pin the blame on me for this disaster.
“Remember if I do not get paid for this job neither do you” he growled out in his rural twang as he made his way towards the four strangely dressed people. While this is true, the statement omits the point that I am a co-contractor with Ryquist Caville and not Mr. Dwight’s employee like the dozen or so other men he brought with us on this mission, however I let that slide for the moment.
Of the four people three were groaning and seemed to be awake, one of which proceeded to puke all over the place, the other was quite unconscious. Of the four three seemed to be male, two were heavily armored, one dressed like a wilder and the last was a woman I think dressed in lighter clothes. They also stank, badly. The styles of their clothing were right out of some Pre-Fall historical documentary vid or fantasy story. One even pointed out her magic wand which, she was sure, was something like my rifle, which I demonstrated for them, causing a great deal of odd looks.
To be honest it took some time to figure out what they were saying with all the thee’s, thou’s and whatever horrible bastardization of vowels they were using. It seemed they were travelling across “the body of Ygg when a etheric pulsar engulfed them and split their party” apparently someone named the Guide, some sort of snake man, one Father Aerik and a Gretta did not end up here, much to their consternation.
Mr. Dwight took a once over of the machinery they had used, with glowing walls and computers and pronounced it dead and proceeded to direct the men in looting it for parts. I looked around for anything else that might be helpful, journals, writings, diagrams, but came up empty, although I did find the Pembril’s food stores and supplies, which I distributed to the newcomers as they were going to need them.
After that Mr. Dwight and I discussed what to do with our new friends. He was of the initial opinion to cut them loose not seeing any good coming out of their weirdness but I had another idea, maybe, just maybe Caville might find them and their story of portals and other worlds interesting enough to not cause us to be black balled in Gateway City and forced to move on as Caville was known to do, in one of the better case scenarios for people who failed to fulfill their contracts. There were less pleasant rumors in regards to such events but let us avoid those for now.
Mr. Dwight insisted that I take responsibility for the strangers, whose names we learned were Sirmarcel and Olis were the heavily armed mean, the former with sword and shield and the latter a spear, the wilder was apparently a Priest of Squeezeme of something like that named Gabriel and the last an occultist named Thorney, and I agreed to do so as they seemed like interesting folk and there is nothing this far out in the jungle that would otherwise help him.
At that point we returned to the surface and after telling the workers their boss had deserted them and making sure he had enough of a haul to pay the mercenaries Mr. Dwight had hired we loaded up the vehicles for our return to Gateway City. I took off to do a once over of the site, which had been swallowed by the jungle and saw nothing but jungle so we mounted Mr. Dwight’s vehicle, a beast of a truck with a mini-gun on top and armored sides. He had insisted that I ride in the cab, which was very polite of him, and off we went.
Things went well after we made it back to the road until we rounded a corner and came to a screeching halt. It seems two large trucks had blocked the road and they had a large robot with them.
“Friends of yours?” I asked Mr. Dwight who proceeded to point his gun at their leader, some loud mouthed man I forgot to get the name of. Needless to say the two swapped barbs, insults and intimidating looks and threatening words until the loud mouthed man realized that Mr. Dwight did not in fact have Professor Pembril and that further chest pounding was pointless. They took off in their trucks to loot what remained of the site.
Mr. Dwight was in a dour mood for the rest of the ride and started mumbling about charging me and our new friends seating costs, mileage costs and wear-and-tear expenditures as well as ammunition costs and taxi fees. I took a nap.
We arrived in Gateway City were our companions seemed surprised by the size of the city and scope of it all, they said it was comparable to someplace called “Yen Ee Noth” but was much easier to see the entirety of, which was confusing. The guards asked for our papers and we showed them as well as acquired the paperwork for getting such for out new companions, who were listed as under my responsibility until then. After that we made our way into the darkening city as the street lights came on as we parked the Beast, found an Inn, cleaned up and got some sleep, tomorrow we would have to deal with Ryquist Caville.
Here is the long and short of it.
Caville: So where is Cartweight?
Us: He escaped.
Caville: That is most unfortunate, do you know what happens to those who fail me?
Us: Yes, but…
<insert>
Somehow the people we found got introduced to Caville and they seemed to know about where Cartweight went and … hope for the best …
New People: Portals, other worlds, Body of Ygg, etheric pulsar, rescue our friends… I am not really certain what they said as I was trying to calm things down between Mr. Dwight and I in regards to the above mention heated words, fortunately that went well as well as whatever the pretty occultist Thorney and others said to Ryquist …
Ryquist: How about a three year contract to find one of these portals?
Mr. Dwight: One month.
Ryquist: A year.
Mr. Dwight: three months.
Ryquist: Six months.
Mr. Dwight: Five and half months.
Ryquist: So it is!
The rest of us: Fine with me.
And the deal was done, finalized by paperwork Mr. Gaunt had prepared amazing quickly and we all signed. Phew, got out of that one decently, I really did not want to end up as fertilizer.
We spent some time shopping after that, filling out paperwork for Identity Cards and generally getting our new friends adjusted to life in Gateway City as well as getting them some food, which they all greatly enjoyed as “there were no tentacles anywhere” which pleased them all except Thorney who deemed the food “boring.” However Thorney seemed fascinated with Gateway City and bought herself many clothes while the others headed straight for the Armories. They all mumbled things about “a city of blacksmiths” as we got acquainted with one another. The next day we would begin our investigations into the Pembil Cartweight, but I shall let that be the end of this chapter and begin our story there next time.

It’s in me now, whatever Crode took from her. I can feel it, and it feels very safe. It feels like a warm bed after a night in freezing rain. But… The fear is on me. Worse than it’s ever been, because I can’t find the borders anymore. There was a ragged hole where “she” had been, a savage wound festering in the center of me. Filling it was all I cared about, but now, this syrupy warmth is erasing it and I can feel her there. But it can’t be her, it’s only a seeming. A fragment. Because I left her behind, or she left me. For a body, and existence apart, a chance to learn from the master. I was saying, the borders, what separates her from me, it’s blurring again, I can feel her mind reconnecting with the parts that were left behind. I struggle to define what is and isn’t me and can’t. But why? There is no need, remember what we were. Remember.

Context. When Chezza was deepest in her studies and gave herself over to the mastery of our uncle’s art, I was lost, because I was, for the first time, alone. Leaving, I lost myself to mischief and fell in with others as adrift as I. I lied for a living because I couldn’t think of anything better and because they admired me for it. I didn’t need the money we took, I needed context. I made sense in contrast to who I had been and who they were. I hated it. I hated them and myself, and those who were weak or foolish enough to be our victims. The truth is when I heard the shrieking of her mind across the psychic gulf, calling for help, calling me back home, I felt… relief. Because she needed me, my twin, my mirror, needed me, I meant something again. I left the charlatan’s life behind without a thought. I got up from our camp and started walking, abandoning my watch and saying nothing. I was scarcely aware of their sleeping forms as I crept out from our camp, never to return.

Or was it her who returned to me? She said that she remembered dying, but I remember it also.

When I returned, when I saw the ruin that was my childhood home, I knew what had been done. Her his? spirit came to me, immediately. There was no hesitation, there was just a brief moment when we were apart, and then we weren’t. Everything made sense then. Context. Before we were born, we were one. We started existence as one thing, one context, and somehow, that being was split in two. I like to think that we needed to be separate to understand what it meant to be reunited.

Chezza had a clarity of purpose, an ambition that I couldn’t imagine. Magic was what she was made for, and she tirelessly pursued it. She was made to learn and to practice her craft to perfection. But she was brittle, inflexible, and devoid of one thing that all truly great mages posses: Improvisation, which I had in spades. I was fluid, but unfocused. I was endlessly creative and inquisitive, but couldn’t bother with anything for more than a fleeting moment. I was extroverted, where she could barely express emotion or tolerate the presence of others. I was emotional, where she was placid. We were everything the other wasn’t.

The moment our spirits touched, everything made sense. Her magic, my fluidity, her focus, my charisma, all served the whole. We were happy, and whole and in love with each other and the universe. We wept at the beauty of existence. She wasn’t a ghost possessing a body, she was an equal part of a once sundered being, restored. No matter what anyone says, our union was Natural. It was supposed to happen.

When the rat took her from me, it was like dying. It felt like dying. The absence screamed to be filled. I hate him for it still, even after seeing his ignoble fate. But… context. It seems incumbent upon us to start speaking from a remove. Alright, Erasmus was a shiftless blackguard, a lazy confidence man. He was no Mage. He had no talent for magic, no focus for mastering his craft, any craft, much less the arcane. But in the seeming absence of Chezza, he did just that. His talent grew and he learned the arts of the vile horned rat who had stolen so much from them. He became what he needed to bridge the impossible gulf between them and honed his skills for the inevitable confrontation. But necessity shouldn’t have been enough to allow him to master the arcane. He should have been stripped of that, just as he was stripped of her. But he wasn’t. This might indicate the inefficient skill of the rat who took Chezza away, a crude knife, excising most of what is useful, but leaving behind some essential, functional vestiges. Or, put another way, the being that was Thorne kept what it needed in order to thrive, whether deliberately, or through happenstance.

Which brings us to memory. That is what Crode claimed to return to me. Chezza’s memories. But what are we, if not the sum of our experience. He offered it as a pittance, but his understanding, I think, was incomplete. I have Chezza’s memories, of before, of her time with the rat, even some of her time with the master. But, I can feel the connection between what I was given and what she left behind, the crude stump from the savage knife of Zakakirzgig. There is context there, there is connection and sympathy. If I was left with what Chezza could do before, I have now been given what Chezza is. This is no semblance of my sister, we are no shadow of what we were. I have grown in her absence, just as she has grown in mine. But this, is me. You are her. I feel like her. I think I would know if you weren’t. We will not mourn.

We feel whole. But what have we left behind. What is she? If what I have been given has rekindled itself into the shape of my beloved, then what is this being who we left behind. One presumes Crode did not leave her an amnesiac. She must also have memory, and he claimed to take a piece of me in exchange for what he gave me of her, though I cannot feel it’s absence. Are there now two of us? Are we the same? We cannot fathom what the price of this reunion will be, but we care not, any price would be fair. We are Thorne, and we are restored. Some day, we will return for what we left behind, and sunder he who dared to separate us.

Last, speaking of price, we will never have the measure of the debt we owe our fellows. Gretta, Marcel, Gabriel, Olis and Aerik, finer friends were never had by anyone.

Marcel, Olis, Gretta, Thorne, Gabriel, Aerik

In the middle of the disturbing cave of not-quite-trees stood a strange mansion guarded by tentacled beast straight out of man’s deepest and darkest dreams. Ser Marcel’s men had little choice to but to face the beast in order to seek the mysteries—and hopefully find the missing Thorne—beyond. Wary and uncertain, the company tried to split the attention of the beast by coming from three directions, but Father Aerik’s attempt to sneak past the beast was an act of faith that as not rewarded although by some miracle he wriggled freed of it’s grasp before he succumb to it’s crushing strength. Olis sought to land the first blow, but was soon trapped by the creature as well. Ser Marcel fought mightily to aid him, while Gretta and Gabriel did what they could to hastened the beast’s end. Thorne, in a state of desperation and frustration to reach his sister’s shade, was distracted with strange notions of sneaking past the beast covered in the filth of the cave. Ultimately, it was blade, arrow, and arcane fire that drove the creature back to it’s lair, and only luck that released Olis from it’s deathly embrace.

Within was a house of ancient opulence driven by megalomania, as it seemed to be the home of the ancient necromancer, Endruthian Crode, still clinging to the glory days of his lost Ebon Council. Within the ‘audience chamber’ we found Zakakyrzig, or rather the shell of the horned rat who was now fully possessed by a demon put there by the foul wizard. The creature babbled on after claiming that Chezza’s spirit was now bound to the necromancer, leaving the party to push forward in the hopes of finding more information before a confrontation with some likely-also-possessed bull beastman.

The company quickly came upon a bound and arcanely chained ancestor of the Skreet, one of the true race that Master Vakarn said had created the portal he used to send us to Yen Enoth some months ago. With little time and some trepidation, Gabriel beseeched the blessed St Juljeta to free the creature from it’s ancient bindings, freeing it from endless torture at the hands of Crode. While unable to speak it’s alien language, Gabriel’s act of freeing it along with Thorne’s tending to it’s wounds had gained some level of trust, and it lead the party quickly away from danger through some ‘teleportation’ device, and then into the realm of another misty portal—what the Skreet had pronounced upon our arrival in Yen Enoth as The Body of Yigg.

Within the mists, the creature was able to communicate and thus learned of our mission, allowing us to return in the hopes of finding Chezza before being taken off to some homeland far beyond the West or even the East as we knew it. Thorne entreated a spirit of the ancient pre-Skreet to aid him, and thus we returned through the teleporter to parlay with Crode and his Iron Bull.

As the mission was and had always been Thorne’s quest, the company trusted him to see it through and awaited his lead. Leaving to discuss the matter with Crode and his spirit-sister Chezza who was indeed present and willing to become Crode’s both apprentice and bride, the company waited warily staring at the two demon-possessed creatures in Crode’s service.

After some time, Thorne returned seemingly both relieved and distraught, and told us that Chezza was to stay as she in the end desired her own mortal form rather than continue to exist as only spirit bound to her brother’s mind. While true to the technicalities of his word, Crode having satisfied himself the victor of the matter of Chezza immediately rescinded his hospitality and sought our deaths. With Throne’s ally, however, the inevitable betrayal was short-lived as the teleporter quickly whisked them to safety.

The company, however, was left stuck in an ancient temple dedicated to beastmen, and no path back to Yen Enoth. After some deliberation and little choice, the party set forth again into the mists of Yigg. While the prisoner we freed was indeed able to guide Ser Marcel, Olis, Gabriel, and Thorne through the Body of Yigg to some place beyond, Father Aerik and Gretta were lost to their own fates.

As the path narrows, my skepticism grows. I find myself afraid. I know that just ahead lies something. An end? It should be her, or at least the corpse of the wretched horned rat that stole her away. He of the ominous name but small reputation. We should have been bold when first we met and laid him low. It was our interest that made us spare him, our coveting of his imagined power, mysterious and shiny, like tinsel to a magpie. He was less than he seemed, but became more than he was because of the power that he stole. I shudder to find his corpse and no sign of her. I tremble at the thought of what I will become if she is lost. Madness is certain, for this faint thread of hope is all that staves off that slavering beast, howling from the periphery.

If you ask my companions, It has found me already. They may be right. They say I am mad because I am drawn to this place, this city whose foundations are the unquiet dead, who’s mortar and bricks are spirit. Such a place where such a being as me might, in the right light, be seen as boring, commonplace, unremarkable. I can feel the proximity of possibility. Doors to unimaginable vistas yawning just out of my vision. It is a cruel thing that I am robbed the joy of any dalliances with this singular place because I cannot bear any moment of pleasure, however fleeting, until I am We once more. No matter what anyone thinks, the being we were was fated, perfect, true. We were better as one, and we will be one again, lest we become none.

The necropolis awaits, we have our guide, we know our destination, the trail lies before us. This must be the moment. It must!

Marcel, Olis, Gretta, Thorne, Gabriel, Aerik

As the blinding flash of light faded and the vision of those of Ser Marcel‘s company returned, the party found themselves in a stone dungeon, with a grate up above. Gretta noticed an active summoning of some kind in the room, and thus with some haste Father Aerik used his purchase from the rat skeller to provide a rope. Gabriel and Thorne’s fox tried to work out how to open the grate, and shortly thereafter a demon appeared.

After a brief fight that drove off the demon with powerful blows from Olis’ eerie spear, the party ascended to find the remains of a number of ancient noble folk who apparently had given themselves up to a death cult. Further exploring revealed a temple to a death god, one that had been crafted with ancient dweomers and long forgotten. More recent activity was evident as someone had taken up residence in the place after the original crafters had perished. No living creature as found, although the preserved bodies of a woman and a few others were present captured in containers of liquid.

With no clear indication of how to escape or find the way out of the complex, Ser Marcel’s party descended in a lift to a huge cave below the temple. The cave was filled with disturbingly shaped, bone-white ‘trees’ which appear to have been planted in a field of corpses. Exploring the reaches of the cavern, the party noted a central structure and headed in to investigate in the hopes of finding some clue as to the location of Thorne’s missing sister-spirit.

Marcel, Olis, Gretta, Thorne, Gabriel, Aerik

The late evening of shenanigans at the Staggering Hedgehog was followed by an early and sudden awakening with the sounds of explosions outside in the street. After a few moments of alarm and confusion, Ser Marcel’s party discovered that the new day was a city holiday, something about eggs and coneys. The party decided that Saint Aud would be quite annoyed at the festival, which the locals claimed to be the new year—such a calendar is yet more proof that the men of the East are insane.

The source of the noise turned out to be children who were setting fire to little balls that would then bang with a great sonance. They looked quite dangerous, so naturally they piqued Thorne’s interest. The “fireworks” as they were called were sold by annually visiting merchants from a land called “Punt”.

As agreed with the Delver, Kristin, we arranged to visit the Necropolis that evening to seek out the crypt of Marthos Phail—our only real clue to the whereabouts of the cursed horned rat. After spending a few hours in preparation, the company head in with Kristin as our guide.

The Necropolis was a subterranean structure, full of dire traps and wards, but we made our way fairly directly to the 4th level based on the research notes. A great stone golem attacked us as we neared the final bend, which the party was able to destroy after some effort. Throne had managed to envigor the local spirits in the battle, who took a very unhealthy interest in Olis.

Upon arriving at the crypt, Father Aerik was able to work the lock mechanism to allow us to gain entry, only to find an empty room. As Gretta and Gabriel ventured in to examine the room, the party followed on with Kristin and Aerik in the back. Just as a great flash occurred, Kristin shoved Aerik into the room which was shortly thereafter empty once again.